Maintenance Dredging at Nelly Bay Harbour

January 2026

In 2025, Council postponed maintenance dredging in Nelly Bay Harbour to prioritise major road and bridge repairs after the damaging 2025 wet season. Since then, options for managing dredged material have been reassessed, including exploring sea placement as a potential alternative.

To help guide this process, Council invited community feedback through a Have Your Say survey from 16 November to 7 December 2025. Thank you to everyone who participated.

This feedback is being considered as part of ongoing work to explore sea placement as an option. The use of Council’s site at Kelly Street in Nelly Bay remains the current approved option with the required permits and approvals in place. Please visit the Have your Say website to read the survey report.

March 2026

In 2025, Council postponed maintenance dredging in Nelly Bay Harbour to prioritise major road and bridge repairs after the damaging 2025 wet season. Since then, Council has been exploring sea placement as a potential alternative for managing the dredged material.

Following completion of the Have Your Say survey in December 2025, where community feedback on the potential alternative was invited, Council has recently submitted a permit application to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water for sea placement. The application was for a multi-year permit (10-year period) to support ongoing maintenance dredging in Nelly Bay Harbour.

We will keep the community informed as to the progress of this permit application. The use of Council’s site at Kelly Street in Nelly Bay remains the current approved option with the required permits and approvals in place.

May 2026

In 2025, Council postponed maintenance dredging in Nelly Bay Harbour to focus on urgent road and bridge repairs following the damaging wet season. Since then, Council has been exploring sea placement as a potential alternative option for managing dredged material. Community feedback on this possible approach was invited through the Have Your Say survey in December 2025, and this feedback helped inform Council’s next steps.

Following the survey, Council applied to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water for a multi-year (10-year) sea placement permit to support ongoing maintenance dredging in Nelly Bay Harbour.

The Department has now issued Council with a Request for Information (RFI) in relation to this application, which is currently being reviewed. Council will respond to the request and continue to keep the community informed as the application progresses.

In the meantime, Council’s Kelly Street site in Nelly Bay remains the approved option for dredged material, with all required permits and approvals already in place.

July 2026

Application Progress

Council is continuing to progress its application to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water for a multi-year (10-year) offshore (sea) placement permit to support ongoing maintenance dredging in Nelly Bay Harbour.

As noted in the May update, the Department issued a Request for Information (RFI) in relation to Council's application. Since then, Council has been preparing the technical information required to support its response. Council will continue to keep the community informed as the application and RFI response progress.

Have Your Say - Consultation Outcomes

The Have Your Say survey has now closed and Council thanks the community for its strong engagement. The feedback received has helped inform Council's approach to managing dredged material from Nelly Bay Harbour.

Survey results indicated support for offshore (sea) placement, with many respondents preferring this option over land-based placement at Council's Kelly Street site (55-77 Kelly Street) due to environmental, social and land use concerns. Council also considered feedback suggesting alternative mainland disposal locations; however, reassessment has confirmed there are no changes affecting the viability of previously considered options, which remain unfeasible at this time. On this basis, Council is prioritising offshore placement as its preferred approach to managing dredged material from Nelly Bay Harbour.

The Kelly Street site remains Council's approved option, with all required permits and approvals already in place.

October 2026

Council is continuing to progress the approvals needed to support future maintenance dredging at Nelly Bay Harbour. Earlier this year, Council received a Request for Further Information from the National Environmental Protection Agency, as part of the application for a multi-year offshore (sea) placement permit. Council submitted its response in August and the application is now under assessment. Any future updates will be subject to the agency’s assessment process and timeframes. Following all approvals, Council will move to tender for the dredging works.

May 2025

Following record-breaking rainfall in late 2024 and early 2025, maintenance dredging in Nelly Bay Harbour has been deferred to allow the repair and replacement of damaged road and bridge infrastructure in the Nelly Bay area.

You can find more information about Council’s dredging and management plan on this project page, and in particular through our Q&A document.

Council is committed to engaging with local communities and will share more information closer to the start of any dredging works.

July 2025

Maintenance dredging in Nelly Bay remains a priority for Council to complete as soon as possible. After considering community concerns and taking into account current road conditions and other projects in the area, such as the Sooning Street bridge, Council postponed the dredging works to prioritise the completion of road and bridge infrastructure repairs. As a result of this decision, we will be retendering the dredging and dredged material management under a new contract at an appropriate time. We remain committed to our project plan, which includes utilising the Kelly Street site for the management of dredge material. We are also working with the relevant regulators to ensure that our approvals for the maintenance dredging works continue as needed to align with the revised project schedule. We will keep the community informed as our plans to implement the project develop or change. We anticipate that dredging will take place in early 2026, weather permitting. Additionally, we are working with Marina Management to ensure that the Marina remains safe and accessible.

September 2025

Earlier this year, Council postponed dredging work in Nelly Bay to prioritise significant repairs to roads and bridges in the area. That repair work is currently in progress. Dredging remains a key priority for Council, and we intend to carry out the work as soon as it becomes feasible. In the meantime, we are reviewing our plans to assess whether any significant changes have occurred that may impact the feasibility of various options.

As outlined on Council’s project page Q&A, we considered a range of options for the dredging and management of materials, including:

• Onshore management back on the mainland

• Disposal sites at Port of Townsville Limited (PoTL)

• Offshore disposal

• Shifting material underwater within the harbour

• Onshore management on Council property on Magnetic Island

• Former Nelly Bay STP (55–77 Kelly Street, Nelly Bay).

As with our original process, Council will re-evaluate these options based on a number of criteria, including sustainability and cost. We will keep the community informed if any of this work suggests changes to our current proposal.

November 2025

Since postponing dredging work to prioritise significant roads and bridge restoration work in the Nelly Bay area, Council has been reevaluating options for the treatment and management of dredged materials. This has included work to explore whether there are any changes to the feasibility of the options initially assessed. The use of Council’s site at Kelly Street in Nelly Bay remains our preferred option and has the required permits and approvals in place. Following preliminary discussions with federal and state government, there may be a feasible option for sea placement of the dredged material.

We are at early stages of discussions on this alternative – it would need to meet all the criteria of sustainability, including environmental and cost, and we would need to be confident that we were able to secure the required approvals and other permits. We’ve found no changes impacting our assessment of other options, which remain unfeasible.

Council will continue to work with relevant partners to explore possibilities around sea placement, and will keep the community informed if this work suggests changes to our current proposal.

December 2025

As part of ongoing investigations into options for maintenance dredging at Nelly Bay Harbour, Townsville City Council invited community feedback on sea placement as a potential management option for dredged material. The survey has now closed as of Sunday 7 December 2025. Visit Have Your Say to read the consultation report.