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| Wivenhoe Dam |
THE Queensland government faces a multi-billion-dollar class action from the victims of the deadly 2011 floods after an inquiry found Brisbane's Wivenhoe Dam manual was breached and recommended three engineers be investigated by the corruption watchdog.
The lives of 35 people were lost and thousands of homes inundated during the massive floods in January last year.
A week before the state goes to the polls, Premier Anna Bligh was yesterday forced to acknowledge the final report by the Floods Commission of Inquiry may lead to long legal disputes for the government and the government-owned dam operator Seqwater.
Commissioner Cate Holmes' damning report recommended the Crime and Misconduct Commission should investigate whether Terry Malone, John Tibaldi and Robert Ayre - engineers who were in charge of the dam in the lead-up to the devastating floods - had misled the inquiry.
The report also recommended a shakeup of council and emergency services preparation for future flood events, including a property buy-back program in areas that are particularly vulnerable to regular flooding, the introduction of severe restrictions on development in areas of very high flood risk, an immediate flood study of the Brisbane River and a mechanism for prospective purchasers of a property to find its flood risk.
Ms Holmes said it was clear the government did not do enough to act when heavy rainfall was predicted.
"The commission has found non-compliance with the manual under which the dam was to be operated," she said.
"What should not be overlooked is that the manual itself is ambiguous, unclear and difficult to use and was not based on the best, most current research and information."
Maurice Blackburn partner Rod Hodgson said the report had confirmed victims' suspicions and strengthened the case for a class action against the state government.
"Too much water was allowed to accumulate in Wivenhoe Dam and the strategy for water releases was botched," Mr Hodgson said.
"This extraordinary report says that, beyond any doubt, that dam was not operated the way it should have been."
Commissioner Holmes found Wivenhoe dam was operated in breach of the manual from 8am on January 8, until the evening of January 9, before Brisbane and Ipswich flooded. She found flooding in Brisbane and Ipswich could have been reduced to some degree if capacity in the dam had been freed up before the December deluge.
