Cucumber growers have been told to improve their pesticide and wastewater management or face further regulatory action after repeated pesticide detections in waterways north of Coffs Harbour.
The NSW Environment Protection Authority has intensified compliance activities following the first 12 months of a water-monitoring program across the Coffs Harbour and Nambucca Valley local government areas.
Quarterly testing of 20 priority waterways since mid-2025 found pesticides in every sampling round at several sites in the Willis Creek and Hearnes Lake catchments.
EPA Director of Field Operations Greg Sheehy said the results had helped authorities locate potential sources of contamination.
“Monitoring over the past 12 months identified regular pesticide detections at a number of Coffs Harbour sites, particularly in the Willis Creek and Hearnes Lake catchments, where pesticides were detected in every sampling round,” Mr Sheehy said.
“This data has been invaluable in helping us identify where pesticides are likely entering local waterways, allowing us to launch several targeted investigations, step up our compliance work and take decisive regulatory action.”
Investigations in the two catchments have resulted in a $30,000 penalty notice for a water-pollution offence and a $1,000 penalty notice for unqualified pesticide use.
The EPA has also issued a clean-up notice and multiple warnings and cautions relating to poor record keeping and other breaches. Most of the enforcement action involved cucumber-growing operations.
Several investigations remain underway.
The authority is urging cucumber producers to review their pesticide practices and ensure wastewater is properly captured and contained to prevent contaminated runoff from reaching local waterways.
Results from the Nambucca Valley were considerably better, with just one low-level pesticide detection recorded across four sampling rounds.
“This is a positive result and shows that Nambucca Valley waterways are not currently being significantly impacted by pesticides,” Mr Sheehy said.
“However, it’s important that we continue monitoring these waterways as horticultural pesticide use increases in the Nambucca Valley area.”
Samples collected through the program are tested for more than 150 commonly used pesticides and 31 trace metals.
Quarterly monitoring will continue in both local government areas, with the results guiding future education, compliance and enforcement work.
More information and monitoring results are available from the NSW EPA.
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