Coobidge Creek
Coobidge Creek, located west of Esperance, covers an area of approximately 20,700 hectares, with farming the predominate land use. In 2017, the river was impacted by extreme weather events.
The creek runs through culverts under South Coast Highway that have been incapable of managing flood events, causing a buildup of water upstream and an extremely high velocity of discharge water (downstream) that exacerbates erosion. The result has been severe including significant loss of riparian vegetation, habitat and adjacent agricultural lands.
Coobidge Creek flows into the Lake Gore Ramsar complex of lakes whose primary threat is sedimentation and nutrient runoff (DEC, 2009). The inter-connectedness of the lake complex necessitates management of the Coobidge to support the Ramsar migratory bird species that inhabit the area each year. Most critically these include seventeen bird species that occur on the Japan Australia Migratory Bird Agreement (JAMBA) treaty and sixteen bird species that occur on the CAMBA treaty found within the Lake Gore Wetland System (Jaensch, 1988).
Coobidge Creek Catchment Management Plan
This plan has been developed to provide a framework for managing the Coobidge Creek Catchment.
Engineering Report
The Esperance Culvert Rehabilitation Assessment Report was prepared by GHD for South Coast NRM. The purpose of the report was investigate engineering and management options to remediate erosion along Coobidge Creek, immediately downstream of the South Coast Highway culvert. This area was severely impacted by flooding in 2017.
