Will Anna Bligh's performance during the crisis save QLD Labor?

[harmesy 37]

Whether Dragun quotes 98% or 95%,91.2% or 115% is immaterial in the bigger picture.

Deflection over degrees of the dam quota doesn't change the FACTS and the facts are:-

"There was no release of water from the dam in the early phase of the flood, leading to the need to dump the 645,000ML on January 11, which may have been the biggest contributor to the flood. This at a time when there was no risk to supply and exceptionally high risk of floods."

There was no release in the months prior either.


And this from another article:

"A spokesman for Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the government considered taking out reinsurance some years ago and opted against it because it was ultimately deemed not to be "a value-for-money proposition"."

Says it all- but at least they look "presidential" in media briefings. As long as they do this - nothing else really matters- right?

 

[John]

The facts are:

Once someone states facts there are always people that fiddle around with the facts to create confusion.

Quite.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Whether Dragun quotes 98% or 95%,91.2% or 115% is immaterial in the bigger picture.

Deflection over degrees of the dam quota doesn't change the FACTS and the facts are:-

"There was no release of water from the dam in the early phase of the flood, leading to the need to dump the 645,000ML on January 11, which may have been the biggest contributor to the flood. This at a time when there was no risk to supply and exceptionally high risk of floods."

There was no release in the months prior either.

There were releases, just smaller ones. All of the 20/20 hindsight jockeys are flogging this one to death, but you don't just release to spare Brisbane in future days, you also have to be mindful of the Bremer River which was already flooding, all of the creeks and tributaries providing flash flooding that do not go into the Wivenhoe catchments, and then they had the unexpected Toowoomba/Lockyer Valley flash flooding coming down into the River. They were concerned that they were going to deliberately flood Brisbane earlier than it eventually was and give Ipswich no chance at all. Imagine a lessening in rainfall or a shift in direction, right after you deliberately caused flooding in Brisbane.

And this from another article:

"A spokesman for Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the government considered taking out reinsurance some years ago and opted against it because it was ultimately deemed not to be "a value-for-money proposition"."

Says it all- but at least they look "presidential" in media briefings. As long as they do this - nothing else really matters- right?

I read that premiums for insuring Qlds infrastructure were 10% of the total value of that infrastructure, annually. Given we have an agreement with the Federal Govt for them to cover 75% of disasters costs, are we really talking gross incompetency here?

 

[GuruJane]

It would be much easier if they used the 100% model.

 

[GuruJane]

Quite.

 

[GuruJane]

What I am saying is that it is mismanagement to have the dam at 98% capacity despite BOM forecasts. (

Harmesy, unless you can demonstrate that you have comprehensive knowledge of all the factors that those having to make these decision/calculations would have had to take into account, then you are just bloviating ie making sweeping assertions unsupported by any facts or authorititave links.

Which is okay, this is an internet forum after all. Meanwhile John is coming across as a BF rarity - one who provides v interesting factual info to support his case. If you can't do this, you should confine yourself to taking on other bloviating posters. There are plenty here to choose from, after all.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

http://www.qt.com.au/story/2010/10/12/dams-stay-open-until-rain-stops/

CONTROLLED releases of water from Wivenhoe Dam are expected to continue for at least as long as the current wet spell.

This was Oct 12 and the policy is to ensure the dam is kept to 100%.

“Is not this release of water from Wivenhoe Dam, when it is holding only 40 per cent its available storage capacity, a clear indication that the government has learnt nothing from the water crisis,” Mr Seeney said.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

But Natural Resources Minister Stephen Robertson said the extra capacity was needed to prevent a repeat of the 1974 floods.

“What Mr Seeney on behalf of the LNP suggests is that Wivenhoe Dam should not be used for flood mitigation purposes,” Mr Robertson said.

“As a result, that puts into jeopardy the very safety of people in Brisbane and surrounding areas.”

The Government were all too aware and were doing the right thing.

I just have to quote this public comment under this article. I wonder what this person thinks now? Just goes to show that people probably should not be too quick to condemn.

Seeney is right. Honestly, how much more likely is it for us to go into drought, than experience a flood bad enough that it would take up BOTH Wivenhoe storages? Next to impossible I would say. We KNOW we experience droughts. We've just been through one. And with our population increasing each week? I think it is far more likely we will experience Dam level of 17% again, than we would ever experience a flood bad enough to require both Wivenhoe storages. ONE, ought to be more than enough based on history and climate. We will never have a flood bad enough to require both storages. Ever. But we are always around the corner from a drought. We need drought mitigation, not flood mitigation. That water should be saved, not WASTED.

Would love to get hold of some of the BOM predictions in the days/weeks prior to the flood peak. I believe they predicted rainfull of 600mm xmas/boxing day, which did not eventuate.

 

[John]

Andrew Dragun has no position on the staff at Griffith Uni. He is not an expert in Hydrology but an adjunct professor in Economics.

He is not on the staff of the relevant Griffith Uni department The Australian Rivers Institute.

http://www.griffith.edu.au/environment-planning-architecture/australian-rivers-institute/staff

 

[harmesy 37]

There were releases, just smaller ones. All of the 20/20 hindsight jockeys are flogging this one to death, but you don't just release to spare Brisbane in future days, you also have to be mindful of the Bremer River which was already flooding, They were concerned that they were going to deliberately flood Brisbane earlier than it eventually was and give Ipswich no chance at all. Imagine a lessening in rainfall or a shift in direction, right after you deliberately caused flooding in Brisbane.




I read that premiums for insuring Qlds infrastructure were 10% of the total value of that infrastructure, annually. Given we have an agreement with the Federal Govt for them to cover 75% of disasters costs, are we really talking gross incompetency here?

Point 1 - so basically you are saying the Labor govt's hands were tied. They did all they could and more - they are completely absolved of any blame because...well they "were concerned they were going to flood Brisbane earlier".



What were the discussions with the BOM like?
Will we ever know?
Will that information be shredded?
What information will we get from the govt?


You can stick with your points from AFTER the flooding- I am going with the Griffith University professor's statistics. No doubt he will be under pressure to keep his job now that he has put pressure on the power elite.


By the way, of course the Bremner River was flooding - every where was flooding .what we are talking about are the weeks and days leading up to the flood...but like you say- Labor Party did all they could and more. They are faultless in everything they do...and by gawd Anna Bligh is great in press conferences....so thank you Anna Bligh for being presidential. She feels like part of my family now as I have seen her so often on tv.




Point 2 - so it wasn't incompetency to not have infastructure insurance?
lordy, if you are willing to go into bat for them on this issue- you are willing to go into bat with them on anything and everything. So it is ok for the federal govt to foot the bill for qld govt incompetency>? is that what you are saying?


I am sorry, but you have no idea how much I mistrust the Labor Party as a result of Paul Keating incompetent reign. I suffered big time from that period. When they stop the incompetency, and have a leader with a bit of substance I will give them a go, but until then I see no evidence of supporting these buffoons.

 

[Metal]

From Meet The Press this morning, Gillard made the comment that it was Joe Hockey who was responsible for the insurance arrangements relating to the Federal government and Queensland, a hard headed financial decision that she agreed with as each state has to work out what is best for them.

 

[harmesy 37]

From Meet The Press this morning, Gillard made the comment that it was Joe Hockey who was responsible for the insurance arrangements relating to the Federal government and Queensland, a hard headed financial decision that she agreed with as each state has to work out what is best for them.

Deflection from Gillard is the best defence, isn't it?

Who is in power RIGHT NOW....Labor or Liberal?

Labor is- they have the responsibility and they have the capability to act on insurance - from the opposition benches you have no power.

Her deflection ploy for all her mistakes no longer works for me. Actually it never worked for me, but don't blame me as I didn't vote for them.


...or perhaps the Labor Party feel that like Riewoldt in football they have been hardly done by and deserve special consideration so that people treat them nicely for their mistakes.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

I am sorry, but you have no idea how much I mistrust the Labor Party

That is all you needed to say. The rest of that post was all conspiracy theory, and no discussion. We can only deal in knowns here, policies, procedures, protocols, the flood event and what was transpiring minute by minute.

Once you get into a discussion with someone who turns to sarcasm to dismiss debate without offering a rebuttal, the discussion is pretty much dead.

I am sure there will be something to come out of the inquiry. Why? Because the event occurred and the affected public will want something out of it. I'd suggest some of the discretionary elements might be clarified in the manual, but they will not find that the manual was not followed and that extenuating circumstances were not taken into account.

It sounds like those guys did a bang up job all things considered, and it was only the fast changing circumstances that caused any problem at all.

People need to have a look back over the past 5 years at the El Nino and La Nina patterns to realise how some rainfalls do not eventuate as expected and some droughts extend far more than expected.

We can probably look back at how decisions not to build dams came about but considering how much rain fall we had South of Wivenhoe, you can see how that water was coming into the Brisbane River regardless and we still would have had a flood event.

The opposition before the event talk up the fact that we should be using some of the flood mitigation reserve to hold drinking water in case of further drought and the expense of running desal plants. After the event they talk up reducing the drinking water reserve, let alone the flood mitigation reserve and utilising desal plants.

It is all political posturing and you have been sucked in by it.

I don't even care about this as a political issue. I don't care who is in power. There are so many layers of experts and public servants, protocols and procedures before this gets back to a government level with some elected parliamentarian with a finger on a button overriding a system established long before they got there.

Each event that occurs, we improve the system. Sometimes that event needs to occur before we find those changes however, especially if aspects of the event are unprecedented.

One of the keys of risk management is not to introduce further risk while trying to address the original risk. It is not always easy to do, especially without history to fall back on.

 

[campbell]

I was home on holidays when all this occured, this was in the catchment for Somerset. We had a metre of rain on the weekend prior to our town being isolated.
That water ran into the Stanley River, onto Somerset and then into Wivenhoe.

ON top of that load of water, we had the Bremer River and the catastrophic flash flood upstream in the Lockyer.

No one could predict this amount of water, no one did, including the BOM.

IMO Bligh has acted calmly throughout this whole time. Our state has had a horrific time this summer.

I am glad she was the leader and not the Borg.

 

[Hawkamania!]

No one could predict this amount of water, no one did, including the BOM.

A strong La Nina event should have tipped them off.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

A strong La Nina event should have tipped them off.

Are you suggesting that it is with 100% certainty that we will always get the amount of rain expected and that drinking water should be emptied in anticipation? If it was and the rainfall was not as great, do you think the public would then consider the government reactive and condemn them for not planning for future drought?

There has to be a balance.

 

[John]

A strong La Nina event should have tipped them off.

A strong La Nina event does not tell BOM nor the authorities the amount of rain that will fall in specific areas any more than they can predict the direction at sea or the landfall of a cyclone. They will be able to predict weather events but as we all should know by now there is no guarantee that The Stanley River Catchment area for example will have either 100mm in one hour or 100mm in 2 days.
Lets take this further. Bom reports from October 2010.

http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml

"Brisbane River catchment: Rainfalls in excess of 200mm in the top of the Stanley River catchment combined with widespread 100mm falls throughout the rest of the upper Brisbane River catchment in the 48 hours to 9am on the 12th of October to produce minor to moderate flooding above Wivenhoe Dam. This flooding provided both Somerset and Wivenhoe Dam with good inflows eventually producing the first large scale gate operation at Wivenhoe Dam since 1999. Minor flooding was also recorded in Lockyer Creek in the Lyon's Bridge area, in the Bremer River around Rosewood and Walloon and in Warrill Creek around Amberley.
Flash flooding was also recorded in some of the northern suburbs of Brisbane including Strathpine, Zillmere, Wooloowin and Deagon, causing traffic disruptions and some inundation of residential areas. Flood warnings that began on the 11th of October continued until the 19th."

Note that they say that this produced "first large scale gate operation at Wivenhoe Dam since 1999." The gates were not closed after this event and stayed open from that point onwards and even now are still open. As of Friday SEQ state on their website "Minor releases from storage."

Lets go back a bit further. The same link reports from May 2009.

"Very heavy rainfall to parts of South East Queensland resulted in flash flooding, and moderate to major flooding of streams between the Sunshine Coast and the Ipswich area.The 4-day rainfall totals to 9am on May the 22nd were generally between 200mm to 400mm, with some of the highest daily rainfall totals exceeding 250mm across the Brisbane and Ipswich areas, including Beerburrum with 302mm.

A Flood Warning for Coastal Streams between Noosa and Coolangatta commenced on May the 19th, with a further Flood Warning commencing on May 20th for the Bremer River, Warrill Creek and Ipswich Creeks. Flood Warnings remained in effect until May the 22nd.

Significant flash flooding was recorded throughout the Brisbane suburbs, with moderate to major flooding occurring in Purga, Bundamba, Woogaroo, Moggill and Breakfast Creeks.

Some minor to moderate flooding occurred in the Stanley River above Somerset Dam, and moderate to major flooding was recorded in the Bremer River and adjacent streams in the Ipswich area. For an overview of the flooding throughout South East Queensland please click on the following link."

If one wishes to look at the link it shows various flooding with Bundamba being more associated with the Bremer River and the Moggill area being near where the Brisbane and Bremer rivers converge. Breakfast Creek is more inner city Brisbane.

You will find that between Tuesday May 19 the Wivanhoe drinking water capacity rose from 46% to 63% over the weekend. This would have been from inflows in areas as stated above. Why then did Brisbane suffer flash flooding when from February 26th through to Tuesday 9th of March this year the Dam level rose from 61% to 94% with no reports of flooding.

It is very easy to sit back with hindsite and from the top of ones Ivory Tower and decide that someone should have their head chopped when there is a hardly a correlation between the 2 events that I have used above to show the vagaries of weather patterns. When there was large amounts of rain around the rest of the state the SE corner, read Brisbane, had yet to suffer. It would have been easy to release the water and, as has been debated, allow certain areas to suffer flooding based on a chance that it would rain. There was obviously a large amount of rain between February 26th through to Tuesday 9th of March this year but I do not recall public debate about releasing water as there was a La Nina effect. In fact the opposite occurred when Wivanhoe reached drinking water capacity in October.

 

[Metal]

Deflection from Gillard is the best defence, isn't it?

Who is in power RIGHT NOW....Labor or Liberal?

Labor is- they have the responsibility and they have the capability to act on insurance - from the opposition benches you have no power.

Her deflection ploy for all her mistakes no longer works for me. Actually it never worked for me, but don't blame me as I didn't vote for them.


...or perhaps the Labor Party feel that like Riewoldt in football they have been hardly done by and deserve special consideration so that people treat them nicely for their mistakes.

This is ranting and does not address the issue of how the insurance arrangements were made. I suggest you do some research and you might come to a less stressful conclusion.

 

[Hawkamania!]

Are you suggesting that it is with 100% certainty that we will always get the amount of rain expected and that drinking water should be emptied in anticipation? If it was and the rainfall was not as great, do you think the public would then consider the government reactive and condemn them for not planning for future drought?

There has to be a balance.

Where did I say 100% certainty? Historically, a strong La Nina brings more rainfall to Easter Australia. The chances of a flood increases in this scenario.

We have to plan better for both droughts and floods. This past decade has focused on the droughts part and ignored history regarding natural climate cycles.

A strong La Nina event does not tell BOM nor the authorities the amount of rain that will fall in specific areas any more than they can predict the direction at sea or the landfall of a cyclone. They will be able to predict weather events but as we all should know by now there is no guarantee that The Stanley River Catchment area for example will have either 100mm in one hour or 100mm in 2 days.
Lets take this further. Bom reports from October 2010.

http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml

It is very easy to sit back with hindsite and from the top of ones Ivory Tower and decide that someone should have their head chopped when there is a hardly a correlation between the 2 events that I have used above to show the vagaries of weather patterns. When there was large amounts of rain around the rest of the state the SE corner, read Brisbane, had yet to suffer. It would have been easy to release the water and, as has been debated, allow certain areas to suffer flooding based on a chance that it would rain. There was obviously a large amount of rain between February 26th through to Tuesday 9th of March this year but I do not recall public debate about releasing water as there was a La Nina effect. In fact the opposite occurred when Wivanhoe reached drinking water capacity in October.

Thanks for the link. If you are interested, have a look at the bom's ENSO page and check out the indexes for Nino 3, 3.4 and 4.

Also, you may want to have a look at this link from the csiro: http://www.csiro.au/news/SEQ-Drought.html

SEQ is one of the wetter regions in Australia due to its proximity to the world’s most intensive rainfall-band, located in the Western Pacific. The rain-band, which is powered by the warmest ocean surface temperature on the globe, moves eastward during El Nino tending to decrease SEQ rainfall. During La Nina, the rain-band moves westward leading to increased rainfall in SEQ. Many of the wettest years for the region occurred in La Nina years such as 1956, 1971, and 1974.

Much of the regional annual rainfall is recorded in summer. In recent decades, SEQ summer rainfall has been significantly reduced. Up until the drought breaking 2010 La Niña event, the SEQ water storage level dropped to below 20 per cent, the lowest level on record since data collection began in 1890.

The El Niño-La Niña relationship oscillates over several decades, in tandem with the IPO, which has a somewhat similar pattern to the El Niño-La Niña cycle but on a longer time scale.



"Since 1980, the IPO has been in a phase similar to El Niño – limiting the rainfall that La Niña brings to SEQ as a major rain-generating mechanism,” Dr Cai said.


“This is largely responsible for the recent drought.”


As of 2010, the IPO appears to be moving to a phase similar to La Niña.

On the subject of "ivory towers", the bom and the csiro upper managements are good examples of that analogy. Unfortunately, scientific research often takes a back seat to political policy.

 

[harmesy 37]

This is ranting and does not address the issue of how the insurance arrangements were made. I suggest you do some research and you might come to a less stressful conclusion.

Yeah, you are right. I am "ranting" - ever wondered why?
because I am sick to death of incompetent, puerile, pig-headed politicans trying to pull the wool over my eyes. They didn't have insurance and they didn't prepare for floods -fact. Skirt around the issue as much as you like- and make 1000 excuses -eg "but they contacted someone in the BOM who said the floods would be only large, not enormous etc" but they are the facts.


Then again, you are right... The Gillard Govt is crystal clean, they haven't made a mistake.

Either have the Bligh govt. Two perfect govts.

I love the way Anna Bligh wears the outback aussie hat in news conferences, and longreach outback jeans.
It makes it out as if she is "one of us". Close up shots on her face on Channel Seven's Sunday Night show...get the emotion...draw it out...she is one of us.

"Thanks Anna for showing sympathy. Gillard looked wooden in comparison."
blah, blah, blah, - you are all sheep, taking on board what you heard on the tv.
Who cares if Gillard is wooden or Bligh showed empathy?
I want to see what they can do to fix it - not put on a soap opera.

 

[Jobe3votes]

In 1 word, YES.

 

[John]

We have to plan better for both droughts and floods. This past decade has focused on the droughts part and ignored history regarding natural climate cycles.

Of course we have to plan better for both droughts and floods. It would be ridiculous of us all to not agree with that. There is a lot to learn from the past few years of drought and how it has broken through La Nina. I am not sure that history has been ignored though. From my understanding the Authorities have been well aware, and in fact both the ALP State Government and the Liberal BCC have both made public pronouncements as such. The issue is, as I have tried to logically document on this thread, is that there are natural circumstances that are out of our control and that the various bodies still do not have an understanding of everything. As much as man thinks he has godhood over nature he does not.

Thanks for the link. If you are interested, have a look at the bom's ENSO page and check out the indexes for Nino 3, 3.4 and 4.

Also, you may want to have a look at this link from the csiro: http://www.csiro.au/news/SEQ-Drought.html
On the subject of "ivory towers", the bom and the csiro upper managements are good examples of that analogy. Unfortunately, scientific research often takes a back seat to political policy.

I am very interested in water policy and have been studious in my research. Interesting reading by CSIRO. I missed that one. As to La Nina lasting the rest of the year I have read that a couple of weeks back but not on the BOM site. There is a little each way in that item "although there are clear signs the event has passed its peak" . Interestingly if one looks at the floods in the late 1890's it must have been a very long La Nina.

I think that it is a bit too easy to accuse BOM and CSIRO of being in an Ivory tower viz a viz flood mitigation and control. Accuse SEQwater as they are in charge of flood mitigation and control though I think what little criticism there has been has been misguided. Policy on water in QLD will barely change when there is a change in Government. I have a lot of criticism of the Qld State Opposition's politicisation of this issue as to me the issue should go beyond politics. If the public at large who are not supporters of the present regime hear what they want to hear it can be damaging to good policy if a majority are misled and the media Carte Blanche repeat poor criticism without fair reply.

I can give you a couple of personal instances.
I approached a state government politician about water in a public meet and greet and listened to the individual in front of me rant that they had not built a pipeline from north Qld. There is merit in a sensible debate on this but the individual said that it would cost little as all they had to do was lay the pipes and gravity would take the water south. Well yeah but what about them thar mountains. The polly politely listened and took notes and I laughed silently. I guess you had to be there.
I was asked by a usually intelligent acquaintance this week why the state government was letting out water from Wivanhoe at this point in time when they could now put it into the flood compartment. Jeff Seeney's abysmal speech had an effect I suspect.
Another was if the water was being let out of the dam why could not we the public have it for free. The individual thought that the water went straight from the dam to the tap.

I actually blame the media for this type of thinking. It is all well and good for the Opposition to talk nonsense, they are after all after votes, but the media needs to be better in it's discussions and give fair reply. I will take a statement from the Andrew Dragun item posted here as an example.

To put this in context, a cyclone heading into Brisbane from the east may be halfway up the Brisbane River before it begins to make an impression on the Wivenhoe catchment, which is then picked up by the radio telemetry. Presumably the forecasts and potential rain then kick in to yield a prediction that the dam might begin to fill. But until the scenario heights get triggered the dam stays shut.
And then it really begins to rain on Brisbane, as it can do. The dam is filling rapidly and big dollops of water need to be released to save the dam. Of course the cyclone is also causing a sea surge and a king tide is running. Unfortunately, the dam release takes about 36 hours to get to Brisbane and out to sea.
And it is too late to be proactive and take precautions with the next Brisbane flood. The dams may be gone and Brisbane could be transported out to Moreton Island.

The way I understand it from my now so many readings on the subject, and I am more than happy to be corrected here, is that the rains that filled the Wivanhoe and Somerset dams came from the north west, the natural catchment area of the dams and that a cyclone, as in 1974, would come from the north east. If a cyclone comes up the Brisbane River from the east no amount of water released from Wivanhoe prior to it coming will prevent damage and flash flooding. Areas that did not flood at the recent event would flood if a cyclone came up the Brisbane River.

As to "Brisbane could be transported out to Moreton Island" seriously this is such utter dribble. Why the Australian prints this rubbish has me curious.

But in the end I come back to what I said earlier. The opposition in QLD will win the next election, the present government has far too much baggage, and with that they will not change water policy too much. Yes they may lower the dam drinking compartment to take into consideration the results of the latest research etc etc but that will be it. Nothing more. They will still encourage water tanks, they will still encourage less water use, etc etc and we will have drought and flood as we always have done and no amount of tinkering with the landscape will stop what happens naturally.

 

[krisholio14]

It's not possible to control everything to the nth degree.

What's happened in Queensland in the last month has been freakish and I don't think a hell of a lot more could be done than what was.

 

[Hawkamania!]

Of course we have to plan better for both droughts and floods. It would be ridiculous of us all to not agree with that. There is a lot to learn from the past few years of drought and how it has broken through La Nina. I am not sure that history has been ignored though. From my understanding the Authorities have been well aware, and in fact both the ALP State Government and the Liberal BCC have both made public pronouncements as such. The issue is, as I have tried to logically document on this thread, is that there are natural circumstances that are out of our control and that the various bodies still do not have an understanding of everything. As much as man thinks he has godhood over nature he does not.

We have to look as far back as historical documents allow for climate patterns leading to periods of droughts and floods.

Unfortunately, history is often ignored or revised for current political policy. This does not help us in our attempts to better understand climate shifts on our planet.

On the bold part, a very good point.

I am very interested in water policy and have been studious in my research. Interesting reading by CSIRO. I missed that one. As to La Nina lasting the rest of the year I have read that a couple of weeks back but not on the BOM site. There is a little each way in that item "although there are clear signs the event has passed its peak". Interestingly if one looks at the floods in the late 1890's it must have been a very long La Nina.

It will be interesting watching the current La Nina. Nino 3 & 3.4 are on the way up, however, Nino 4 has dipped again. Nino 4 should start a long trend upwards soon (IMO).

I think that it is a bit too easy to accuse BOM and CSIRO of being in an Ivory tower viz a viz flood mitigation and control. Accuse SEQwater as they are in charge of flood mitigation and control though I think what little criticism there has been has been misguided. Policy on water in QLD will barely change when there is a change in Government. I have a lot of criticism of the Qld State Opposition's politicisation of this issue as to me the issue should go beyond politics. If the public at large who are not supporters of the present regime hear what they want to hear it can be damaging to good policy if a majority are misled and the media Carte Blanche repeat poor criticism without fair reply.

I can give you a couple of personal instances.
I approached a state government politician about water in a public meet and greet and listened to the individual in front of me rant that they had not built a pipeline from north Qld. There is merit in a sensible debate on this but the individual said that it would cost little as all they had to do was lay the pipes and gravity would take the water south. Well yeah but what about them thar mountains. The polly politely listened and took notes and I laughed silently. I guess you had to be there.
I was asked by a usually intelligent acquaintance this week why the state government was letting out water from Wivanhoe at this point in time when they could now put it into the flood compartment. Jeff Seeney's abysmal speech had an effect I suspect.
Another was if the water was being let out of the dam why could not we the public have it for free. The individual thought that the water went straight from the dam to the tap.

My criticisms of the bom and csiro are aimed at their managements. They are too focused on promoting political policy over actual results from research. An example of this was their state of the climate report in 2010.

In my dealings with pollies regarding climate science, I can vouch that some of them have NFI. One told me that CO2 was the main greenhouse gas in our atmosphere and any increase in our atmosphere is poisonous, all the while drinking a soft drink containing CO2.

I actually blame the media for this type of thinking. It is all well and good for the Opposition to talk nonsense, they are after all after votes, but the media needs to be better in it's discussions and give fair reply. I will take a statement from the Andrew Dragun item posted here as an example.

Its not just the opposition speaking nonsense and seeking votes. Wasn't there someone sprouting something about "the greatest moral challenge of our generation" a while back?

The way I understand it from my now so many readings on the subject, and I am more than happy to be corrected here, is that the rains that filled the Wivanhoe and Somerset dams came from the north west, the natural catchment area of the dams and that a cyclone, as in 1974, would come from the north east. If a cyclone comes up the Brisbane River from the east no amount of water released from Wivanhoe prior to it coming will prevent damage and flash flooding. Areas that did not flood at the recent event would flood if a cyclone came up the Brisbane River.

I'd be interested in any links containing documentation on that if you could please.

As to "Brisbane could be transported out to Moreton Island" seriously this is such utter dribble. Why the Australian prints this rubbish has me curious.

Its not just the oz. A lot of the mainstream media climate pieces are very partisan especially in the fairfax rags. See the latest paul krugman or mike carlton opinion pieces as examples.

But in the end I come back to what I said earlier. The opposition in QLD will win the next election, the present government has far too much baggage, and with that they will not change water policy too much. Yes they may lower the dam drinking compartment to take into consideration the results of the latest research etc etc but that will be it. Nothing more. They will still encourage water tanks, they will still encourage less water use, etc etc and we will have drought and flood as we always have done and no amount of tinkering with the landscape will stop what happens naturally.

Agreed. It will be more of the same no matter who wins.

 

[John]

I'd be interested in any links containing documentation on that if you could please.

You are asking me to link? >>> "The way I understand it from my now so many readings on the subject, and I am more than happy to be corrected here, is that the rains that filled the Wivanhoe and Somerset dams came from the north west, the natural catchment area of the dams and that a cyclone, as in 1974, would come from the north east. If a cyclone comes up the Brisbane River from the east no amount of water released from Wivanhoe prior to it coming will prevent damage and flash flooding. Areas that did not flood at the recent event would flood if a cyclone came up the Brisbane River."

Just to clarify the highlighted part the catchment area is to Brisbane's North West. The rain can of course fill the catchment area from anywhere to the north of Brisbane.

A lot of my ideas have come from readings in the press and various media.
BOM has this image, for example, that shows the vast majority of cyclones come in from the north east in relation to Brisbane.

Wiki carries this image of Cyclone Wanda.

As to Rain fall this is a PDF on the Stanley River catchment area and can be read in conjunction with the 128km BOM site

http://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/addfiles/documents/environment/waterways/stanley_river.pdf

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR663.loop.shtml

If you search blog world there is so much varying opinion that it can makes ones head swivel. Try this one.

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2011/01/15/water-policy-after-the-flood/


Thanks for those that replied sensibly such as yourself Hawk. I tried to reply in kind on what has been an amazing learning experience. When water misses the front door by 50 meters and one helps evacuate and clean up after an event such as this it sure clears the head so this might be my last on the subject until the enquiry. I am getting back to reading about the 30 Year War. It seems a far less complex subject.

 

[Hawkamania!]

^ Thanks for the info. I appreciate your time and effort in this thread. Its great to have a sensible conversation regarding weather and climate issues.