Oxley Creek, Queensland
Encyclopedia
Oxley Creek is situated in south east Queensland
, Australia
and is one of the major tributaries of the Brisbane River
with an estimated 260 square kilometres in area. Water from the large catchment area
flows into Oxley Creek as it flows through the low hills in Beaudesert
Shire, and other local government areas of Logan City
, Ipswich
and into Brisbane
.
Oxley Creek is crossed by the Ipswich Motorway
and Logan Motorway
. In the suburbs of Oxley
, Corinda
and Tennyson
the lower reaches of the creek contain the Oxley Creek Canoe Trail and are bordered by houses, parks, a driving range and sports fields. In these areas it is heavily polluted. These winding areas for the creek's catchment are prone to flooding, especially if there is an overflow on the Rocklea
flood plains from the tributary Stable Swamp Creek.
who first surveyed it. Initially Oxley had called the creek the Canoe River. This was in recognition of the first Europeans to reach the creek, Thomas Pamphlett
, John Finnegan
, Richard Parsons
who reached the area after being shipwrecked on Stradbroke Island
. At Oxley Creek the three found two canoe, one of which was used to cross the river and travel downstream.
As early as 1828, hoop pine was being felled near the mouth of Oxley Creek and in the area that is today known as Chelmer
and Graceville
. In 1852 the first public bridge over the creek was built for the dray road that led to Ipswich. By the 1860s timber cutters from Brisbane were entering the Oxley Creek flood plain. The creek and tributaries were described as being surrounded by dense scrubland with patches of sub-tropical rainforest.
The headwaters of Oxley Creek begin on the northern slopes of Mount Perry, south of Ipswich, in Beaudesert Shire. From here, the creek flows northwards about 70 kilometres, eventually discharging into the Brisbane River at Tennyson.
Oxley Creek's upper catchment is sparsely populated and largely natural, with forested hills and grazing land. However, in other parts of the catchment, urban development has had great impact. In the middle and lower catchment, Oxley Creek and its tributaries flow through 28 Brisbane suburbs including Algester
, Corinda, Darra
, Durack
, Forest Lake
, Moorooka
, Salisbury
, Sunnybank Hills
, Graceville and Sherwood
. Major industrial areas of Acacia Ridge
, Coopers Plains
and Rocklea are located in the catchment, as well as waste water treatment plants at Oxley and Inala
, and the vicinity of Archerfield Airport
.
in the catchment have greatly affected the water quality
of Oxley Creek, particularly in its lower reaches. Key environmental issues that face the catchment are:
Local councils and bushcare groups have worked to reduce sediment entering the creek by planting vegetation. By 2008 improvements had resulted in water quality tests on the creek system's rating lifting from a F to a D.
Effluent from the Oxley Waste Treatment Centre was released into Oxley Creek during the 2010–2011 Queensland floods
. Levels of bacteria 250 times higher than normal were recorded in the waterway. Due to safety concerns parts of Oxley Creek were not immediately cleared of debris. Brisbane's Recovery Task Group has identified Oxley Creek along with a number of other waterways that are to be targeted in the recovery process that make take a number of years to restore.
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and is one of the major tributaries of the Brisbane River
Brisbane River
The Brisbane River is the longest river in south east Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay. John Oxley was the first European to explore the river who named it after the Governor of New South Wales, Thomas Brisbane in 1823...
with an estimated 260 square kilometres in area. Water from the large catchment area
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
flows into Oxley Creek as it flows through the low hills in Beaudesert
Beaudesert
Beaudesert could refer to:*Beaudesert, Queensland, a town in Australia*Electoral district of Beaudesert, an Australian electroral district, which includes the town of Beaudesert, Queensland*Beaudesert, Warwickshire, a village in Warwickshire, England...
Shire, and other local government areas of Logan City
Logan City, Queensland
Logan City is a Local Government Area in South East Queensland, Australia. The city is situated between the City of Brisbane to the north and Gold Coast to the south. The city also borders the Scenic Rim, the City of Ipswich and Redland City....
, Ipswich
Ipswich, Queensland
Ipswich is a city in South-East Queensland, Australia. Situated along the Bremer River Valley approximately 40 kilometres away from the state's capital Brisbane. The suburb by the same name forms the city's Central Business District and administrative centre...
and into Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
.
Oxley Creek is crossed by the Ipswich Motorway
Ipswich Motorway
The M7 runs from the junction of Ipswich Road and Granard Road to the M2 Logan Motorway interchange. It is then signed M2 until the junction of the Warrego Highway and the Cunningham Highway between Brisbane and Ipswich in South East Queensland, Australia.It initially passes through the suburbs of...
and Logan Motorway
Logan Motorway
The M2/MR6 Logan Motorway offers motorists a quick link between Ipswich and the M1 or Pacific Motorway at Loganholme, and the Gateway Motorway, providing access to the Gold Coast on the eastern seaboard and to the rural areas of the Darling Downs to the west....
. In the suburbs of Oxley
Oxley, Queensland
Oxley is a south-western suburb of Brisbane located approximately 11 km from the Brisbane CBD. It was named after the early Australian explorer John Oxley. The suburb supports a mix of residential, retail and industrial land use....
, Corinda
Corinda, Queensland
Corinda is a suburb in Brisbane, Australia. Located approximately 9 km southwest of the Brisbane central business district.It is believed that the name Corinda originates from a local cattle station owned by Sir Arthur Palmer, which he named after his Corinda pastoral station near...
and Tennyson
Tennyson, Queensland
Tennyson is a suburb of Brisbane, Australia. It is 7 km south of the CBD on the Brisbane River.The area was originally named Softstone by James Strong, one of the original settlers, but by 1897 the name was changed to Tennyson. Tennyson is named after the British poet Alfred Tennyson.The...
the lower reaches of the creek contain the Oxley Creek Canoe Trail and are bordered by houses, parks, a driving range and sports fields. In these areas it is heavily polluted. These winding areas for the creek's catchment are prone to flooding, especially if there is an overflow on the Rocklea
Rocklea, Queensland
The large Brisbane suburb of Rocklea is located 12 kilometres south of the city. At times the suburb has experienced significant flooding from the nearby Brisbane River. The west of the suburb is bordered by the Oxley Creek....
flood plains from the tributary Stable Swamp Creek.
History
The creek was named after John OxleyJohn Oxley
John Joseph William Molesworth Oxley was an explorer and surveyor of Australia in the early period of English colonisation.October 1802 he was engaged in coastal survey work including an expedition to Western Port in 1804-05...
who first surveyed it. Initially Oxley had called the creek the Canoe River. This was in recognition of the first Europeans to reach the creek, Thomas Pamphlett
Thomas Pamphlett
Thomas Pamphlett , sometimes Pamphlet, also known as James Groom, was a convict in colonial Australia. He is best known for his time as a castaway in the Moreton Bay area, halfway up the eastern coast of Australia, in 1823. He was marooned with two others, Richard Parsons and John Finnegan, until...
, John Finnegan
John Finnegan
John Finnegan, a convict of the colony of New South Wales , was one of four men who set off on a timber getting mission from Sydney bound for Illawarra in 1823...
, Richard Parsons
Richard Parsons (convict)
Richard Parsons, a convict of the colony of New South Wales , was one of four men who set off on a timber getting mission from Sydney bound for Illawarra in 1823...
who reached the area after being shipwrecked on Stradbroke Island
Stradbroke Island
Stradbroke Island, also known as Minjerribah, was a large sand island that formed much of the eastern side of Moreton Bay near Brisbane, Queensland until the late 19th century...
. At Oxley Creek the three found two canoe, one of which was used to cross the river and travel downstream.
As early as 1828, hoop pine was being felled near the mouth of Oxley Creek and in the area that is today known as Chelmer
Chelmer, Queensland
Chelmer is an inner suburb of Brisbane, Australia located 7 km west of the Brisbane CBD on the Brisbane River. Chelmer is zoned as a residential area, and consists of low-density housing. It has many fine Queenslanders, characterised by wooden verandahs, wide stairways and roofing of...
and Graceville
Graceville, Queensland
Graceville is a suburb in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is located 8 km south-west of the Brisbane CBD. Graceville is bordered by the Brisbane River to the North-East and West, Oxley Creek to the East, Chelmer to the North and Sherwood to the South....
. In 1852 the first public bridge over the creek was built for the dray road that led to Ipswich. By the 1860s timber cutters from Brisbane were entering the Oxley Creek flood plain. The creek and tributaries were described as being surrounded by dense scrubland with patches of sub-tropical rainforest.
Tributaries
Tributaries of Oxley Creek include Crewes Creek, Blunder Creek, Sheep Station Gully, Stable Swamp Creek, Rocky Water Holes Creek, Little Doris Creek and Moolabin Creek.The headwaters of Oxley Creek begin on the northern slopes of Mount Perry, south of Ipswich, in Beaudesert Shire. From here, the creek flows northwards about 70 kilometres, eventually discharging into the Brisbane River at Tennyson.
Oxley Creek's upper catchment is sparsely populated and largely natural, with forested hills and grazing land. However, in other parts of the catchment, urban development has had great impact. In the middle and lower catchment, Oxley Creek and its tributaries flow through 28 Brisbane suburbs including Algester
Algester, Queensland
Algester is an outer suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is south-west of the central business district.Algester was heavily developed after the Second World War and has also seen considerable recent development. It forms part of the Brisbane Agricultural Reserve, which once covered a...
, Corinda, Darra
Darra, Queensland
Darra is a Brisbane suburb known for its high migrant population. It is one of the older suburbs and lies about 14 kilometres southwest of Brisbane. The houses are mainly of the Queenslander style built in the 1940s and 1950s. The majority of blocks in Darra are large enough to be subdivided, which...
, Durack
Durack, Queensland
Durack is an outer suburb of Brisbane, Australia. It is south-west of the CBD.Durack is named after Michael Durack, one of the original landholders of the area.-External links:* *...
, Forest Lake
Forest Lake, Queensland
Forest Lake or "The Living Forest" as it is affectionately known, was the first Master Planned Community within the municipality of Brisbane, Queensland. It has won numerous awards for its design and had a population of 20,900 residents, as of February 2006. Delfin, the developer of Forest Lake,...
, Moorooka
Moorooka, Queensland
Moorooka is a suburb of Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia. Bordering with Toohey Forest Park, it is seven kilometres south of Brisbane's central business district...
, Salisbury
Salisbury, Queensland
Salisbury is a suburb of Brisbane, Australia. It is south of the Brisbane central business district.Salisbury was named after the residence of William Coote, an early Brisbane journalist and political figure, who lived in the area....
, Sunnybank Hills
Sunnybank Hills, Queensland
Sunnybank Hills is an outer southern suburb of Brisbane about 15 kilometres from Brisbane CBD, in Queensland, Australia. It is a large suburb, and adjoins the suburbs of Calamvale, Coopers Plains, Sunnybank, Macgregor, Algester, Acacia Ridge and Runcorn....
, Graceville and Sherwood
Sherwood, Queensland
Sherwood is a suburb of Brisbane, Australia. It is 9 km south west of the CBD and borders the Brisbane River. The suburb is mostly low and medium density housing with a retail strip centered along Sherwood Road.-Open Space:...
. Major industrial areas of Acacia Ridge
Acacia Ridge, Queensland
Acacia Ridge is a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Acacia Ridge is south of the central business district. The population in the 2001 census was 6648....
, Coopers Plains
Coopers Plains, Queensland
Coopers Plains is an outer suburb of Brisbane, Australia. It is south-west of the CBD.-Transport:Coopers Plains railway station provides access to regular Citytrain services to Brisbane, Beenleigh and Gold Coast. There are many buses passing Coopers Plains, which are 120 , 135 , 123 , 598 and 599...
and Rocklea are located in the catchment, as well as waste water treatment plants at Oxley and Inala
Inala, Queensland
Inala is a suburb of Brisbane, Australia, situated in the south-west of the metropolitan area.-History:Following World War II there was a shortage of 250,000 houses across Australia. State and Commonwealth Governments responded by making housing a priority. In Queensland alone over 4000 families...
, and the vicinity of Archerfield Airport
Archerfield Airport
Archerfield Airport is a small airport located 7 1/2 miles at Archerfield in the south west of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. For some time it was the primary airport in Brisbane. During World War II it was used as a Royal Australian Air Force station. Airport traffic peaked in the 1980s...
.
Environmental concerns
Residential and industry development, sewage, sediment, land clearing and sand miningSand mining
Sand mining is a practice that is becoming an environmental issue as the demand for sand increases in industry and construction. Sand is mined from beaches and inland dunes and dredged from ocean beds and river beds. It is often used in manufacturing as an abrasive, for example, and it is used to...
in the catchment have greatly affected the water quality
Water quality
Water quality is the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of water. It is a measure of the condition of water relative to the requirements of one or more biotic species and or to any human need or purpose. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which...
of Oxley Creek, particularly in its lower reaches. Key environmental issues that face the catchment are:
- Rapid populationPopulationA population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
increase and development; - Altered flow patterns of the Creek causing active erosionErosionErosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
; - Deteriorating water quality;
- Increased noiseNoiseIn common use, the word noise means any unwanted sound. In both analog and digital electronics, noise is random unwanted perturbation to a wanted signal; it is called noise as a generalisation of the acoustic noise heard when listening to a weak radio transmission with significant electrical noise...
and vehicle movements; - WasteWasteWaste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...
disposal; - Invasion of bushlandBushlandBushland is any area in Australia that is predominantly indigenous flora and fauna.Bushland is the term commonly used by conservation protection groups and other environmental groups as a blanket term for natural vegetation, which may cover any kind of habitat from open shrubby country with few...
by exotic plants and animals; - Management of the extractive industries; and
- Day-to-day behaviour of residents and workers of the catchment.
Local councils and bushcare groups have worked to reduce sediment entering the creek by planting vegetation. By 2008 improvements had resulted in water quality tests on the creek system's rating lifting from a F to a D.
Effluent from the Oxley Waste Treatment Centre was released into Oxley Creek during the 2010–2011 Queensland floods
2010–2011 Queensland floods
A series of floods hit Australia, beginning in December 2010, primarily in the state of Queensland including its capital city, Brisbane. The floods forced the evacuation of thousands of people from towns and cities. At least seventy towns and over 200,000 people were affected. Damage initially was...
. Levels of bacteria 250 times higher than normal were recorded in the waterway. Due to safety concerns parts of Oxley Creek were not immediately cleared of debris. Brisbane's Recovery Task Group has identified Oxley Creek along with a number of other waterways that are to be targeted in the recovery process that make take a number of years to restore.