Midway Plantations

More on Midway Plantations Pty Ltd

Wandong/Strath Creek/ Yea Regions.

Sunday Creek /King Parrot Creek/Yea River/Goulburn River catchments

November 2005: Midway own about 1200/1300 hectares of plantations in the Sunday Creek catchment, east and north of the small township of Wandong. These plantations are mostly pine, probably established by Smorgons in the 1970's. Some of the pine is being logged and replanted with bluegum, seen in foreground. Bluegums can be more susceptible to insect attack meaning the use of toxic insecticides. The plantations in this photo are located in the Slaty Creek catchment. These plantations lie downstream of the Sunday Creek reservoir, Broadford's water supply.

November 2005: More plantations in the headwaters of Slaty Creek. Slaty Creek flows into Sunday Creek about 5km downstream from this location. Plantations in this catchment would probably be using about 9 million litres of water per hectare per year. New bluegum plantations have also been established on the other side of the ridge in the headwaters of the Dry Creek. The new bluegums are located about 2km due east of Wandong. Will they be aerially sprayed?

November 2005: Recent logging of pine plantations in the headwaters of tributaries feeding into Dry Creek. This plantation is about 4km north of Wandong.

November 2005: Plantation 4km's north of Wandong contains about 50 hectares of native vegetation.

November 2005: Pine Creek plantation being logged. This plantation lies adjacent to the Hume Highway about 6-8 km north of Wandong. This plantation was the location of one of the only experiments conducted to understand the effects of plantations on salinities and stream flow.

Effect of Reafforestation on Stream Flows, salinities and groundwater Levels in the Pine Creek Catchment. (Shepparton Dryland Region Land and Water Salinity Management Plan - June 1995).

Between 1988 and 1994, the Rural Water Commission monitored stream flow in the Pine Creek Catchment - near the town of Broadford, which is part of the Sunday Creek catchment in the Goulburn River system. Pine Creek drains a catchment of 3.2 km2 (320 ha) almost all of which was located within the "Glenburnie" property, a grassland property which was converted to pine plantations in 1986 by Smorgon Forests, a part of the Smorgon group of companies. The site is now under the ownership of Midway Wood Products Pty Ltd who own a export woodchip mill at Geelong.

The Pine Creek study is very important because if quantifies the impacts of stream flow on a 'larger scale' than similar studies conducted in Victoria. Most other reports looking at the impacts of plantation establishment on water yields in Victoria only deal with plantation impacts on a much smaller scale.

Key findings of the report include;

"* Stream flows from the Pine Creek catchment have reduced significantly over the period from late 1988 to 1994, while the total rainfall on the catchment has remained relatively constant.

* Salt loads from the Pine Creek catchment have decreased over the study period from approximately 0.45 to 0.3 tonnes/ha/yr. The magnitude of salt inflows to the stream are not solely related to surface flow, demonstrating that ground water intrusion to the creek is also contributing a proportion of the inflow. Over the last six years, groundwater levels have declined by approximately 2 m, which is consistent with the decreasing salt inflows to the creek over time.

* Discharge of flow and salt load from the catchment has significantly diminished due to the change in land use from open grassland/bare land to Pine plantation due to the increased uptake of water by the pine trees (interception and evapotranspiration)."

p12 "Stream Flow ... This trend is supported by the annual flow volumes shown in Table 3, which indicates that the flows have decreased considerably from approximately 690 ML in 1989 to 240 ML in 1993. The data also shows that this decrease in flow occurs with little change in annual rainfall which varies from 865 mm/yr in 1989 to 914 mm/yr in 1993."

Table 3: Annual Stream Flow, Rainfall and Salt load - Pine Creek (405290A)

p14 "It has been hypothesised that the flow reductions in Pine Creek have resulted from the continued growth of the pine plantations across Glenburnie. This hypothesis gains added support from an inspection of cumulative flow plotted against cumulative flow."

p27 Conclusions. Stream flows from the Pine Creek catchment have reduced significantly over the period from late 1988 to 1994, while the annual rainfall on the catchment has remained relatively constant. The much larger Sunday Creek catchment (which includes the Pine Creek catchment) and adjacent Mollison Creek catchment, do not exhibit similar trends, demonstrating that the observed decline in the Pine Creek's flow is likely due to local catchment land use ... Both the flow and the salt load from the catchment have significantly diminished due to the change in land use from open grassland/bare land to Pine plantation. Due to increased uptake of water by the pine plantation (interception, evapotranspiration etc.), the amount of rainfall runoff and groundwater recharge has reduced and hence so has the salt load being discharged to the stream."

November 2005: Recent logging of pine plantations by Midway in the Dry Creek catchment about 4km south east of Kilmore East. Most of these plantations are being replanted with bluegums.

November 2005: Recent logging of pine plantations by Midway in the Dry Creek catchment about 4km south east of Kilmore East. Most of these plantations are being replanted with bluegums, as seen in this photo.

2006: Midway also own over 1500 ha of pine plantations in the King Parrot Creek catchment which flows into the Goulburn River in the parish of Kerrisdale. The plantations in this image are located on the south east slopes of Tallarook State Forest. There is a larger holding about 5km south near the Mount Disappointment State Forest. Pine established by SCI is now being logged and converted to bluegum plantations by Midway.

November 2006: Midway also own about 500 ha of plantations in the Yea River catchment about 15km south of Yea. This particular plantation is located in the Rellimeigga Creek catchment in the Parishes of Billian and Yea.