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| One of the state's most experienced water consultants, Max Winders, says authorities have been focusing on the wrong priorities when it came to flood-proofing Brisbane and Ipswich. |
BRISBANE and Ipswich residents have few reasons to feel confident there could not be a repeat of the disastrous 2011 floods, a leading hydrologist says.
Max Winders, one of the state's most-experienced water consultants, said basic steps could help flood-proof the two cities but authorities had focused on the wrong priorities in the wake of the crisis.
The findings of the flood inquiry's expert, Mark Babister, that flooding could have been reduced by up to 0.9m in Brisbane - and hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of damage avoided - had been largely ignored, he said.
"The whole commission of inquiry and most of the recommendations have been concerned with dam safety and not mitigation," he said.
"If there's something wrong with the safety of the dam then they should tell us about it. The first priority should be flood mitigation, the second priority should be water conservation and access for small communities downstream of the dam should be last on the list."
The Courier-Mail revealed yesterday that a flood inquiry recommendation to consider raising river crossings downstream of the dam to stop them being inundated is among 76 items still on the State Government's "to-do" list after the flood inquiry.
Mr Winders said studies had shown the trigger level for the emergency "W4" release strategy used during 2011 at Wivenhoe Dam could be revised upwards to increase the storage capacity of the dam.
The "fuse plugs" at Wivenhoe, which protected the dam during extreme events, could also be redesigned with the same purpose, he argued.
Seqwater said both proposals were under consideration as part of long-term studies.
Mr Winders said councils should have the greatest stake in protecting residents during floods but had said little on the issue due to legal liability fears. "Fundamentally they're the people for whom flood mitigation has been designed," he said. "Why haven't they been insisting on maximising the flood mitigation potential of the dam and why didn't they before 2011?"
Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale said people had put their faith in Wivenhoe Dam after experiencing the 1974 floods but there had been "human error" in 2011. "When (Wivenhoe) got to 100 per cent they should have kept it at 100 per cent so that as water went in, water went out," he said. "Someone let it get to 180 per cent."
He said he had made his feelings clear locally but the lengthy and expensive flood inquiry process had made him wary of formal approaches to the State Government.
"There's too much bureaucracy involved in good decision making in this country," he said.
"There's not a sense of confidence in the government because there's always an inquiry or someone not making the decision."
Deputy Mayor Adrian Schrinner said Brisbane City Council was confident it was doing everything in its power to improve the City's flood resilience. "We will never escape the fact Brisbane is built on a flood plain but we're still working hard to protect the City by raising building heights through to buying back flood-affected homes," he said.
Acting Premier Jeff Seeney said the Government was working on improving the dam manual but it depended on "a whole range of hydrological work ... which (could) take quite a number of years to complete".
www.CourierMail.com.au
9.1.13
