how clean is the brisbane river?

[marty+jojo]

I have heard the bream feed from the crap pipe but would the snapper too?

Hey Jack Extractor,
I used to fish the river all the time and i have never caught a squire near the sh#t shoot, only got bream and flathead, i have caught heaps of squire on the other side of the river. I have eaten many squire from the river and i have not had any probs yet
Marty.

[tunaticer]

Back in the 70's through the "bad" pollution periods where no checks were ever made for contaminants entering the river we used to catch bloody big jew in the city reaches on trolled 6" chemical lights. It was easy to get a few strikes each evening we went trolling there but now I think it might be a case of a thousand hours per strike.

Does the river look like it is healthy enough to support big top end predators in the city reaches anymore?

Jack.

[bushbeachboy]

From a North Queenslander's perspective: I just moved to SEQ from the Burdekin area. Went for a fish in the Brisbane River on the Saturday of Riverfire. It was a beautiful day, but xyzQ! boat traffic. I launched at Fishermans Island and looked around out to the mouth, navigated around the outside of the island back to the Boat Passage, then upstream to the Gateway Bridge and back. It is a scary industrial nightmare of a place. I saw 2 oil refineries, a fertiliser factory, at least one poop shoot (I think that's what it was on the Pinkenba side), lots of smoke and noise from the container ships and bulk carriers. Luckily I only caught a couple of undersize snaps so I didn't have to decide whether to keep a fish for tea. There is lots of structure in the river - pontoons, barges, and just heaps of poles holding up the wharves. Very fishy looking, but I'm not sure where you are allowed to anchor and fish yet. St Helena looked inviting though and I will be sure to visit it when the weather is good.

[alleycat]

I grew up in indooroopilly in the 60s and i went accross the indooroopilly bridge last week and the water was a clear light green, i havent seen it this clean since after the 74 flood, and i do remember lots of people swimming under the southern end of the bridge on the beach there.

[Chas & Clarry]

We asked a similar question a while ago...the outcome for us was that we decided that its probaby safe enough to eat fish from the local rivers (Bris and Pine), but there wasn't much definitive science about the issue.

WE won't eat fish from the area of the outlets...just personal preference, the link below has the info we found

http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/sho...highlight=pine

C&C

[Far side]

My 2 cents worth
At the moment with everyone conserving water the pressure on sewerage treatment plants is a lot lower also the lower rainfall is helping as the plants do get overloaded from stormwater however having spent some time in effulent treatment it would be best to fish on the run in tide. The river stinks at fairfield where there is a treatment plant when they release which is usually at night on the runout tide.
Plus you have Ipswich upstream which is having a population explosion at the moment. Their sewerage goes in the Bremer

I love catching the fish in the river but for me its only catch and release I prefer to err on the side of caution.

As for the Logan you just need to do the math--population verses one river to drain. Unfortunately we all poop and it has to go somewhere.

I think there are very tight wraps kept on water quality reports and it is fairly easy to get a bias report on quality it depends on the location of the sample tides current etc.

[Louis]

Am I the only one that has seen the Brisbane River crystal clear in the past before?

(See my earlier post)




Louis

[oldboot]

was it a blue moon and how many............ um......... errrr.......... "fish" had you caught that night.

cheers

[Louis]

G'day Oldboot,


Nope, wasn't under the effects of any substances and having hallucinations.

It was definitely clear for about a week or so.



Louis

[Louis]

I wonder if the Brisbane River is actually half as bad as some think.

Admittedly it is extremely muddy. There is definitely a lot of suspended silt in the water but many 'Clean' rivers display this phenomenon also.

Are there really as many pollutants in the river as what people think?

Or has the suspended silt in the river given the Brisbane River a bad name?



Louis