The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts’ (DITRDCSA) recent media release from 11 June 2026 (also see at the bottom of this post) on Norfolk Island’s water quality left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am glad water quality is being talked about. For many years, those of us who care about Emily Bay, Slaughter Bay and the Kingston catchment have wanted exactly that – the right attention for the reef, funding, monitoring and action. Old septic systems in Kingston clearly needed replacing. The CSIRO work has been valuable. Catchment management is long overdue. No sensible person would argue against proper investment in water quality.
But the media release also made me uneasy, because it presents a set of government actions as though they add up to demonstrated water-quality improvement. In fact, it has already been suggested to me, by someone with authority but on the fringes of this discussion, that ‘now all this money has been spent, the problem has been fixed, hasn’t it?’
I can only wish. He was referring to the $8.2 million spent in Kingston on the new sewerage network. But more on that later.
But this is where I think we need to be careful about taking DITRDCSA’s media release at face value. At first blush it looks like a fantastic list of achievements. But there is a difference between doing works and proving those works have improved the condition of the system. There is also a difference between solving one agency’s problem and solving the environmental problem as a whole. I touched on this issue of government silos back in March 2023 in a blog post – Tiptoeing through the government silos. When I wrote that post I wasn’t a researcher, and I was only beginning to understand the interdepartmental disconnect – the structural disjointedness – of government departments.
Norfolk’s water-quality problems do not sit neatly inside one department, or within one funding program, one land parcel or one jurisdiction. They run through Kingston, Council infrastructure, private septic systems, wetlands, cattle grazing, groundwater, stormwater, the Marine Park and the reef itself.
So we don’t just have a water-quality problem. We have a silo problem.
The catchment does not care who owns which piece
Above: views across the Kingston Common, Norfolk Island
Emily Bay and Slaughter Bay are the receiving environment. Everything that happens uphill, underground, across the wetland, through drains, through septic systems, through the Water Assurance Scheme and through the creeks eventually has the potential to affect the lagoon.
But the management of that system is split across a range of agencies and responsibilities, and a range of stakeholders: the Commonwealth Department, Norfolk Island Regional Council (NIRC), Parks Australia, Kingston (KAVHA), Australian Marine Parks, private landholders, public land managers, cattle interests, tourism interests and the wider community.
Each stakeholder can look at their own part of the puzzle and say, ‘we are doing our bit’. But the problem is that the reef does not respond to ‘bits’. It responds to the whole system, and for that we need a whole-of-system approach.
DITRDCSA can fund sewerage works in Kingston and claim progress, while NIRC is still left with an ageing wastewater system, limited regulatory powers over private septic tanks, inadequate funding for major infrastructure, and the day-to-day burden of public health, wastewater, monitoring and compliance. Parks Australia can manage the Marine Park, but the pollutants entering that Marine Park come from land. Kingston can be managed as a World Heritage landscape, but its drainage, wetlands and acid sulfate soils are also part of the reef’s water-quality story.
While I don’t want to seem churlish or unappreciative, this is why I find the media release frustrating. It reports visible activity, but it does not really grapple with the connected systems underneath.
Let’s unpack the media release, claim by claim.
Town Creek during a drought, 8 December 2024
Town Creek after heavy rain, 21 Janauary 2026
Town Creek after heavy rain, 21 Janauary 2026
Aerial photography of Emily Bay after heavy rain, Norfolk Island, 4 August 2025. The water carries silt, nutrients and pathogens into the bays
The sewerage claim
DITRDCSA points to the Kingston sewerage project as a major water-quality achievement. Replacing ageing septic systems in the World Heritage area with a pumped sewer network may well reduce one source of contamination in that immediate area. But that is only part of the question.
Once sewage is collected, it must go somewhere. In this case, it is being pumped up the hill into the island’s only wastewater system – a system Council has long identified as ageing, underfunded and in need of major investment. This plainly illustrates our silo problem. One arm of government can claim a win because it has removed old septic systems from Kingston. Meanwhile, Council is left carrying the harder and more expensive problem: an ageing treatment plant, limited regulatory powers over private septic systems, no island-wide solution for failing on-site wastewater, and no secure funding pathway for the essential infrastructure needed to make the whole system work.
So the question is not whether the Kingston sewerage works are useful. They may well be. The question is whether they were planned as part of a properly funded catchment-to-reef wastewater strategy, or whether they have solved one agency’s problem while leaving Council and the reef with the rest of it.
That is not integrated water-quality management.
I do not dispute that the old Kingston septic systems needed replacing. The problem of sewage in the Kingston catchment has been known for decades, and old septic tanks and soakage trenches were never going to be a satisfactory long-term solution in such a sensitive catchment. But a pumped sewer network is only as good as the system it feeds into.
For an island with no reticulated potable water supply, recurrent drought pressure, stressed groundwater, reef impacts from nutrient pollution and ageing wastewater infrastructure, wastewater should not simply be treated as something to pipe away. It should be treated as a resource. That means we should be asking whether the $8.2 million spent on the Kingston sewerage project was assessed against broader options: advanced localised treatment, enclosed treatment and reuse systems, fit-for-purpose recycled water, targeted replacement of failing septic systems across the wider Kingston catchment, and direct investment in the Water Assurance Scheme itself.
I’m not saying the chosen project was necessarily wrong. I’m saying that a public claim of water-quality success needs to explain how the project fits into the whole wastewater system. At the moment, the public message is too simple: ‘we’ve spent a bucket of money – old septic systems out, pumped sewer system in, contamination reduced’.
CSIRO gave us a baseline, not a victory certificate
Flooding on Kingston Common after heavy rainfall, 21 January 2026
The CSIRO water-quality work is valuable. It has given Norfolk something we badly needed: better evidence. It has helped identify contaminants, pathways, catchment pressures and marine water-quality conditions. It has supported the development of site-specific guideline values. It has also helped move the conversation away from anecdote and towards measurement, all of which are major steps forward.
But monitoring a problem is not necessarily remediating it.
A water-quality report is not the same thing as water-quality improvement. A benchmark is not the same thing as a recovery trend. A guideline value is not the same thing as a management outcome. CSIRO’s work gives us tools to judge whether management interventions are working, which is a different thing to saying those interventions have already worked.
DITRDCSA’s media release leans heavily on monitoring and reports as part of its list of achievements, but what we need for the reef is for that monitoring to drive decisions, funding, implementation and accountability. That being the case, CSIRO’s work should now be used to ask hard questions.
Are nutrients falling?
Are faecal contamination levels falling?
Are rainfall-event pulses being reduced?
Are groundwater contaminants changing?
Can we separate human, cattle, bird and other sources?
Are conditions in Emily and Slaughter Bays improving, or are we still documenting decline?
Until those questions are answered publicly, the most accurate description is ‘work underway’, not ‘water-quality wins’.
The reef is not yet telling a success story
Some bleaching occurred in the bay in the 2025–2026 summer season. This was taken on 26 February 2026
The latest reef-health assessment does not support a simple success narrative. In the most recent coral health report there was some good news. Sea temperatures were lower through the 2024–2025 summer, and no bleaching was observed during that period, although there was some bleaching in the 2025–2026 summer period, which is not covered in that report. That gave the reef a reprieve after previous heat stress.
But the wider picture is still worrying. Algal cover is increasing across the inshore bays. Free space on the reef surface is declining. That free space is important because baby corals need somewhere suitable to settle. Severe rain events from April 2025 on brought flooding, catchment run-off and sedimentation. Coral disease, which had improved during the drought, has, anecdotally, returned and this remains a concern. Likewise, recruitment is looking uncertain. We will need to see this year’s report to confirm this, of course.
Coral cover may have remained relatively stable so far, and that is important. But coral cover alone is not the whole story. A reef can hold some coral cover while the conditions needed for recovery are deteriorating. Increasing algal dominance, declining available substrate, persistent disease and poor water-quality pulses are not minor problems for our small, delicately balanced inshore reef. They are signs that the system is still under pressure.
So if the reef is the endpoint of the catchment, it is essential that the reef must be part of DITRDCSA’s scorecard. A media release about improving water quality should not stop at the pipes that have been installed, bores drilled, fences built, trees planted or weirs installed. It should tell the community whether the condition of the receiving environment is improving.
Fencing is only useful if it excludes cattle from the wetland as it exists now
The media release lists fencing waterways as an achievement, saying this prevents cattle access, reduces bank erosion and direct contamination. While I am aware a Draft Cattle Management Policy is currently open for community consultation, which may address the matter of cattle access to watercourses, for the moment I can only comment on the status quo.
The idea of fencing cattle from waterways is sound. All the science suggests that cattle should not have unrestricted access to waterways, wetlands, dams, acid sulfate soil areas, or erosion-prone drainage lines, particularly in a catchment that directly abuts a coral reef. There is ample evidence that unrestricted cattle access can contribute to pugging, erosion, sediment, nutrients, faecal contamination and wetland damage.
Interestingly, as an aside, the first evidence I have found about depastured cattle being an issue was back in 1906. But I digress.
With regards to Kingston, I have a practical question: what exactly has been fenced?
In recent years, and since that fencing was done, the wetland has changed. The lower Watermill and Town Creek area has expanded. In places, water now lies under the fence line and spreads several metres beyond it. If the fence follows an old watercourse alignment rather than excluding cattle from the current wetted area and wetland margins, then it may look like a water-quality intervention on paper while doing little during the conditions that matter most.
In other words, a fence only protects a wetland if it excludes stock from that wetland.
If cattle are still standing in boggy wetland areas, pugging* acid sulfate soils and defecating where water moves after rain, then the claim needs to be treated with caution. The proper question is not, ‘has fencing been installed?’ The proper question is, ‘does the fencing exclude cattle from the current functioning wetland?’
And I think we can all agree that the answer to that is, no, it doesn’t.
Leaky weirs also need evidence, not just a mention
The same arguments apply to leaky weirs. The media release says leaky weirs slow water, trap sediment and nutrients, and allow cleaner water to move downstream more gradually. That is the intended function. But the public needs to know what has actually happened on the ground.
How many leaky weirs were installed?
Where are they?
Are they still in place?
Are they functioning?
Have any subsequently been removed?
Is there monitoring upstream and downstream showing reduced sediment or nutrient loads?
I’m honestly not sure about the answers to these questions, but I have a suspicion that those leaky weirs are not functioning as they should. If one or more have already been removed, that does not automatically mean the whole approach failed. But it does mean the claim should be more precise.
Again, the issue is not whether the intervention sounds good. The issue is whether it is still there, whether it is functioning, and whether anyone is measuring the result.
Since the waterways were fenced, the wetlands have spread well beyond the fenceline. Kingston Common, Norfolk Island
Cattle pug the wet soils with their hooves
Cattle waste enters the waterways only a short distance from Emily Bay
Was the reef fine before the wetland reformed?
I can already hear the responses to all this: ‘There was nothing wrong with the reef until the wetland came back.’
Or perhaps: ‘When the drains were kept clear and the water ran out freely, we didn’t get these pulses of filthy water going into the bay.’
But I do not think the evidence supports either of those arguments.
Concerns about water quality and reef condition in Emily and Slaughter Bays did not begin when the Kingston wetland expanded. They go back decades. People were raising concerns about pollution, freshwater flows, nutrients, algae and coral decline long before the wetland reformed in its current extent. The Water Quality Working Group’s own 2022 fact sheet states that there had been public health and environmental concerns for more than 50 years about stormwater contaminated with human and animal waste entering Emily and Slaughter Bays. CSIRO has also noted that concerns about water quality and coral condition in these bays have spanned several decades.
We need to be careful here. The wetland is easy to blame because people can see it, but the records point to a much older and more complicated problem.
It is also worth being careful about the idea that a cleared channel equals a healthy system. A drain that moves water quickly to the sea may look tidy and efficient, but that does not mean the water is clean. It may simply mean nutrients, faecal contamination, sediment and other pollutants are being delivered to the lagoon more quickly, with less opportunity for wetland plants, sediments and microbial processes to slow, trap or transform them.
In other words, ‘the water was running freely’ is not the same as ‘the reef was being protected’.
Nor were the problems limited to obvious dirty water after rain. One of the important findings from the water-quality work is that nutrient levels have been found to remain high in Emily and Slaughter Bays even during dry periods when the Emily Bay outlet is not flowing. That points to groundwater as part of the problem, not just visible surface water running through the wetland or out through the sand.
That is a crucial point. If pollutants are moving through groundwater, then keeping the surface channels clear will not solve the problem. It may alter what we see on the surface, but it does not remove the contamination moving underneath.
The wetland did not appear in a pristine, untouched catchment. It reformed in a landscape that had already been drained, channelled, grazed, modified, crossed by roads and infrastructure, affected by septic systems, and periodically worked with machinery. The lower Watermill and Town Creek system has been altered for more than two centuries. More recently, very wet years, dry years, groundwater changes, cattle pugging, bank damage and disturbance of acid sulfate soils have all interacted.
The use of machinery in drainage channels also needs to be part of this story. These are not natural, stable creeks with intact riparian edges. They are modified channels through a low-lying wetland landscape. Clearing, deepening or reshaping them can break down banks, disturb wet soils, expose acid sulfate materials, increase sediment movement, and change how water behaves after rain. Then, when a dry period is followed by a wet one, any acidity, metals, nutrients or disturbed sediment can be mobilised and carried through the system.
A functioning, vegetated wetland can help slow water, trap sediment, take up nutrients and buffer downstream impacts. But a disturbed wetland, with cattle standing in it, acid sulfate soils being pugged or exposed, drainage channels damaged, and polluted water moving through it after rain, can also become part of the problem. What we have at the moment is a wetland that pleases very few.
If we want the wetland to help protect the reef, it has to be managed as a wetland – not treated as a failed drain. That means keeping acid sulfate soils wet and undisturbed, excluding cattle from the wetted area, avoiding unnecessary machinery disturbance, managing vegetation carefully, and monitoring what actually flows from the catchment into Emily Bay.
Nor should we rely too heavily on memory alone. Local observations are important, but they are not the same as long-term reef monitoring. Before masks, snorkels, underwater cameras, citizen science platforms and regular reef-health surveys became common, far fewer people were looking closely at the reef below the waterline. A reef can be changing long before the change becomes obvious from the beach.
So I am not saying the recent wetland expansion has no consequences. I am saying it is not credible to blame the reef’s current condition simply on the wetland reforming. The more likely explanation is cumulative pressure: decades of catchment modification, wastewater leakage, animal waste, sediment, altered freshwater flows, acid sulfate soil disturbance, groundwater contamination, heat stress and poor water-quality pulses after rain.
The acid sulfate soil risk also needs addressing
The Kingston wetland is not just a patch of inconvenient water in a heritage landscape. It is part of a living catchment system, and it includes acid sulfate soils. I feel that the public have not been given the appropriate information on this topic. If they had been then perhaps there would be a greater understanding as to why the wetlands need to remain just that, wet. It is time for DITRDCSA to be straight with the community and explain the situation clearly and carefully.
But failing that, I will say it for them here:
Once acid sulphate soils have been disturbed or ‘activated’, keeping them wet is not optional; any future management of Kingston has to start from that reality, and work out how the landscape can be cared for without drying, draining or repeatedly disturbing those soils.
Let me explain why.
First, it is important to understand the history of drainage works in Kingston. The channels through Kingston are not natural, stable creeks. They are modified drainage lines in a low-lying wetland landscape. When machinery is used to clear, deepen or reshape drainage channels, it can break down banks, expose soil layers, disturb monosulfidic material, and change how water moves through the system.
CSIRO’s acid sulfate soil work is very clear on this point: acid sulfate soils are generally benign if left saturated and undisturbed, but drying, excavation, drainage works, vegetation management and cattle pugging can transform them into acidic, damaging material. The wet–dry cycle makes this worse. Extended dry periods can lower groundwater levels and expose acid sulfate soils to oxygen; wet periods can then mobilise acidic water, metals, nutrients and disturbed sediment through the catchment and eventually towards Emily Bay.
Acid sulfate soils are usually benign if left wet and undisturbed. But when dried, disturbed or exposed to oxygen, they can release acid and mobilise metals. Acid sulfate soils are highly dangerous to infrastructure, agriculture, and aquatic ecosystems. Naturally stable when submerged, they contain iron sulfides that produce sulfuric acid when exposed to oxygen. This acid can leach toxic metals into groundwater and streams. That has implications for water quality, World Heritage fabric and other infrastructure, cattle management, mowing, drainage, wetland works and any attempt to ‘tidy up’ the landscape.
Cattle pugging is therefore not just an aesthetic problem. It can disturb wet soils, damage wetland vegetation, increase turbidity and potentially worsen the risks associated with acid sulfate soils.
Likewise, any push to drain or mechanically clear the wetland needs to be treated with extreme caution. The desire to make Kingston look more like a drained colonial and early Pitcairn landscape cannot be separated from the downstream consequences for water quality and reef health.
The challenge is not choosing between heritage and ecology. The challenge is managing Kingston as the connected place it is: World Heritage landscape, wetland, catchment, cattle area, public space, drainage system and reef-adjacent environment. Pretending those roles can be separated is how we got into this mess.
An algal bloom in Emily Bay, 22 February 2026
Cyanobacterial matting, Emily Bay, 20 May 2026
Lyngbya, Emily Bay 31 January 2026
bove: these three photos show some of the effects of poor waste management on Norfolk Island’s coral reef. All photographs were taken in 2026.
This is not anti-government, anti-cattle or anti-works
I want to say this plainly. This is not an argument against fixing septic systems. It is not an argument against CSIRO monitoring. It is not an argument against fencing, planting, catchment works or better grazing management. Nor is it an argument against cattle as part of Norfolk Island’s landscape and culture. It is an argument against overclaiming. It is also an argument against fragmented action being dressed up as integrated management.
DITRDCSA is reporting inputs and activities: money spent, pipes installed, monitoring funded, fences built, trees planted, leaky weirs installed, equipment purchased. Those things are all real. Some initiatives are no doubt useful. Some are essential. But ultimately the reef needs outcomes. Which means the community should be told whether the system is improving, not merely whether work has occurred.
The ‘next steps’ need more substance
To be fair, the media release does include a section on what happens next. It says water-quality improvement is a long-term effort, and that the Department will continue CSIRO monitoring, work with NIRC and landholders on catchment improvements, explore further options for Kingston, including management of the wetland areas, and provide regular updates.
That’s great, but it is not enough.
‘Ongoing monitoring’ only helps if the results are public, understandable, and tied to decisions. If monitoring shows nutrient levels remain high, faecal contamination persists, sediment pulses continue after heavy rain, or reef indicators keep moving in the wrong direction, what happens then? Who acts? What funding is triggered? What changes on the ground? Monitoring without a response plan is just watching.
The same applies to ‘continued partnership’. Partnership sounds good, but it does not tell us who is responsible for what, how Council will be funded to deliver essential infrastructure, whether private septic systems in the wider catchment will be addressed, how landholders will be supported or required to make changes, or what happens if voluntary action is not enough.
This concern also applies to the waterway and wetland strategy now being developed by Council. From what I have seen so far, the strategy is a useful step, but it leans heavily on working with landholders, voluntary participation, fencing, revegetation, off-stream watering, erosion control and wetland protection. All important things, but they are not the whole water-quality problem.
If the strategy does not properly connect to wastewater infrastructure, private septic systems, the Water Assurance Scheme, the treatment plant, groundwater contamination and microbial source tracking, then it risks becoming another partial response to a whole-system problem. A bucket of money will be spent, everyone will be told how much has been achieved, and yet the reef may still be left waiting for the one thing it actually needs – cleaner water reaching the bay.
There is also a practical weakness in relying too heavily on voluntary cooperation. Willing landholders are not necessarily the landholders in the highest-risk places. The properties that matter most for water quality may not be the first to sign up. If the program depends on voluntary fencing, voluntary revegetation and voluntary management agreements, then the community needs to know what happens when voluntary action is not enough.
Most people will need technical help, funding, time and practical support. But if public money is being spent to protect the reef, there must be a pathway for dealing with the highest-risk sites, not just the easiest ones; otherwise, we may end up with well-intentioned works in some places, while the most important pollutant sources remain untouched.
Then there is the phrase ‘management of the wetland areas’. That needs careful unpacking. If wetland management means protecting wetland function, excluding cattle from the current wetland footprint, keeping acid sulfate soils wet and undisturbed, managing vegetation carefully, and monitoring flows into Emily Bay, then that could be a useful next step.
But if wetland management becomes a softer way of saying drainage, clearing, mowing, reshaping channels or trying to return Kingston to a tidier colonial landscape, then we risk making things worse.
So yes, there are next steps. But the community needs more than general assurances. We need to know:
What are the targets?
What are the timelines?
Who is responsible?
Where is the funding coming from?
What will be measured?
How often will results be published?
What happens if the indicators do not improve?
What happens if wetland works disturb acid sulfate soils or increase downstream impacts?
What happens if partnership and voluntary action are not enough?
The next steps should not just be a list of intentions. They should be a public accountability framework.
What integrated management would look like
A proper catchment-to-reef response would not treat the Kingston sewerage project, Council’s treatment plant, private septic systems, cattle access, wetland management, water-course management, acid sulfate soils, rainfall pulses and reef health as separate stories. Nor would it treat voluntary landholder works as a substitute for wastewater planning, infrastructure funding or regulatory reform. It would treat them as one system.
It would have clear responsibilities, public reporting, funding pathways and monitoring triggers. It would say who is responsible for what, how much each action will cost, where the money will come from, and what happens if targets are not met, and it would also be transparent.
The Water Quality Working Group may be useful, but from where I sit it is almost invisible. There are no public agendas, no public minutes and no community representation, and just one public-facing document since its inception back in 2022 – a fact sheet. For an issue of this importance, that is not good enough.
Water quality is not just a technical issue. It is a public issue, an ecological issue, a public health issue, a tourism issue, a heritage issue and a community trust issue. The public need to know what has been done, where it was done, how much it cost, what it was intended to achieve, what was measured, and whether the indicators are improving, worsening or unchanged.
It should include freshwater, groundwater and marine sites. It should include rainfall-event monitoring, not just routine sampling. It should include reef indicators such as turbidity, sediment deposition, nutrient levels, faecal contamination, algal cover, coral disease, coral recruitment and benthic condition.
And it should also be honest where there is uncertainty.
Some changes will take time. Groundwater pathways can be slow. A dry year may make conditions look better than they really are. A wet year may make things look worse even if some works are helping. That is exactly why careful interpretation is essential.
DITRDCSA needs to realise that the public can handle complexity. What erodes trust is being told things are already improving before the evidence has been shown.
The bottom line
Norfolk Island’s water-quality problems are not new. They have been documented for decades. They are not caused by one source, and they will not be solved by one project.
The work now underway may be useful. Some of it may prove essential. But a sewerage project in Kingston is not the same as a funded wastewater solution for Norfolk Island. Fencing a watercourse is not the same as excluding cattle from the current wetland. Installing a leaky weir is not the same as proving sediment and nutrients have been reduced. Monitoring water quality is not the same as improving it. A waterway strategy that relies heavily on voluntary landholder works is not the same as a fully funded catchment-to-reef plan.
And claiming progress from inside one government silo does not make the whole system healthier.
If Emily Bay, Slaughter Bay and the reef are the endpoint of the catchment, then they have to be part of the measure of success.
* Cattle pug the soil. Pugging refers to the structural damage caused when livestock hooves break through the surface of waterlogged or saturated soils. This creates deep, water-filled hoofprints that destroy soil structure
Algal bloom on the fringe of Emily Bay, 3 January 2026
Public health warning signs have been used since 2020
