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| Cr Paul Tully at the Goodna Pillar of Courage and Historic Flood Marker. The yellow segment represents the height of the 2011 flood at Goodna. Could the Goodna Town Centre have been high and dry if the Wivenhoe Dam had been better managed in 2011? |
Maurice Blackburn Lawyers in conjunction with litigation funder IMF (Australia) have been examining a re-modelled version of the events leading up to the Brisbane River flood of January 2011.
This is part of the decision-making process regarding a possible class action against the state government and/or Seqwater.
Without doubt, the review by world-class engineers and hydrologists will examine the key issues including the capacity of the Wivenhoe and Somerset Dams, actual and achievable water releases, the flow of water from the Lockyer Valley into the Brisbane River system, rainfall leading up to and during the crisis, as well as weather forecasts during this critical time.
The Queensland Floods Commission has already found that Wivenhoe Dam was not managed in accordance with the Dam Operating Manual from 8:00am on Saturday 8 January 2011 - a full three days before the flood struck on the following Tuesday.
The Commission also found that had the dam been operated differently, the flooding would have been lower.
The tantalising question is by how much - if any - the flood could have been avoided if the dam engineers had gone down a different path.
Would Ipswich, Goodna and Brisbane have been spared the brunt of the flood?
It should not be long before these questions are answered by the battlers' only hope - Maurice Blackburn.
18.12.12
