Local governments are working on proposing a $40 million collaborative project across all levels of government over five to 10 years to improve the health of south east waterways.

Addressing the SEQ Council of Mayors last week, Member for Brisbane and Assistant Minister for Waste Reduction and Environmental Management, Trevor Evans, said there was an opportunity to attract Federal support and a long-term vision for the Resilient Rivers Initiative.

The Resilient Rivers Initiative was launched in 2014 as a co-ordinated approach to catchment management backed by the Council of Mayors, Queensland Government, Seqwater, Healthy Land and Water, Unitywater and Queensland Urban Utilities.

Mr Evans said the region should start looking at its waterways as hard infrastructure and look to the South East Queensland City Deal to give the Resilient Rivers Initiative national significance.

“City Deals are a mechanism to bring all three levels of government together to think about important, long-term investments in a region,” he said.

“Usually City Deals just think about hard infrastructure; things like hospitals, airports, public transport and roads but the Federal Government is keen to explore how City Deals can start to think about things like recycling and waste and regional environmental assets.

“I am attracted to the idea that we start to treat the catchments like hard