Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Two FOBIF members went to Walkers Swamp on the Moolort Plains recently. They wanted to observe the abundant wetland birdlife Geoff Park has been documenting on his blog, Natural Newstead, for the past year or so. It was a still and sunny morning so the swamp with its reflections of Red Gums looked at its best.

Walkers Swamp, Moolort Plains. Photo by Bronwyn Silver, 11 August 2011

Most of the birdlife was fairly distant but we did manage to capture a White-necked or Pacific Heron Ardea pacifica sunning itself and a Striated Pardalote Pardalotus striatus in a nearby tree.

White-necked or Pacific Heron. Photo by Bronwyn Silver, 11 August 2011

Striated Pardalote. Photo by Damian Kelly, 11 August 2011

At the FOBIF AGM a question was put to the Catchment Management Authority’s Damian Wells about vegetation clearance along Barkers and Campbells Creeks. We’ve had the following response from the CMA this week:

‘The CMA inspected sites in the region in response to community/stakeholder enquires following flood events.

‘Any sites that contained accumulated flood debris i.e. loose vegetative material such as sticks, logs, branches, leaf material were targeted for removal. At almost all blockage sites the accumulated flood debris was positioned against in stream ‘live vegetation’, therefore it actually was contributing to the blockage. Predominately, this in stream ‘live vegetation’ consisted of exotic vegetation, mainly willow but may have included hawthorn, ash and poplar species.

Campbell's Creek, July 2011: the stumps visible here are willows; the CMA says its works have had a 'negligible' effect on native vegetation.

‘At some sites live native vegetation (canopy) species such as red gum and wattle were amongst the accumulated flood debris sites. Therefore the act of accessing and removing the debris and live exotic species at the identified blockage sites with large mechanical machinery was unavoidable.

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The North Central region had between four and seven times its long term rainfall average in January this year, and Castlemaine had five times its long term average. The rainfall between September and January was unprecedented, and came into an already wet catchment.

These figures formed the background to the talk given by Damian Wells, the CEO of the Catchment Management Authority to the FOBIF AGM on Monday night.

Flood damage was the theme of the talk, and there were two recurring issues:

The first was: it’s better to have assets ‘out of harm’s way’ than to have them in flood plains where they have to be protected.

The second was the flack copped by the CMA over its alleged neglect of waterways ‘causing’ the floods. Members will remember that this note was struck in Castlemaine, when it was claimed in the local press in January that plantings along creeks, or failure to clear creeks of vegetation, had raised flood levels in the town. [See our post of May 13]

Muckleford Creek over Lewis Rd, September 2010. The floods have been a boon ecologically, but although Victoria had eight major floods last century, Councils do not have adequate maps of flood levels. So building continues on flood plains. Photo: Bronwyn Silver

On the first issue, Damian noted that town levies are the responsibility of councils, but that rural levies protecting property are a long standing maintenance problem and the source of continual disputes as to who is responsible for them. The lower Loddon has 200 kilometres of levies, and these failed in 117 places in January. It has been estimated that restoration of levies could cost $650 million. He praised the government’s offer to buy out farmers in vulnerable areas, as a more practical long term solution to inevitable floods than prohibitively expensive protection measures.

On the second theme, Damian noted that the CMA had been ‘howled down’ in Creswick for its supposed responsibility for floods there, but subsequent investigations had completely vindicated its position. Bridges and road culverts are major causes of water blockages and subsequent level rises, but the major problem is building on flood plains. The CMA is continually challenged by developers in VCAT when it opposes building in such areas.

He agreed that peak flood level models should be incorporated into planning schemes on a state wide basis, to avoid the situation of people building on flood prone land. Incredibly, he noted that current modelling of flood risk zones is inadequate. [In spite of the fact that Victoria had serious floods every 10-20 years in the last century— in 1909,1916,1917 1974 1956 1974, 1990, and 1993— it seems we still don’t have good maps telling us where not to build!]

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