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2011 Flood - email sent 16/3/12 (with
later additions)
Rodney Stephen
4BC
I have not looked
at todays report on the 2011 flood, but gather that it recommends action against
the engineers involved in managing the flood routing.
This would seem
to me to be a gross error because, while there was undoubtedly a lot of
confusion and difficulty in managing the flood event, this is not likely to be
entirely or primarily the fault of those who were in the control room during the
emergency.
There are
severe problems in Queenslands system of government which are discussed in
various documents on my web-site and an overview of these (Paying
the Price of Ineffectual Public Administration) is in Structural
Incompetence and SE Queensland's Water Crisis (2007). Ultimately those
systemic problems can be traced back to the amateurish approach to public sector
reform adopted by the Goss Government in the early 1990s (see
Queensland's Worst Government?), which left government: politicised (ie
dominated by yes men); fragmented; overly complex; and (as a consequence)
subjected to periodic crises. The response to such crises has not been to
confront the structural problems that were introduced into Queenslands system
of government, but rather to: (a) throw huge amounts of money at problems; and
(b) blame bureaucrats. A classic example involved the response to the crisis in
the Health Department / Bundaberg Hospital. The problems seemed to be due to the
dysfunctional environment around the Department as much as to internal failings,
but enquiries were set up that were limited to seeking only internal scapegoats
(see
Intended Submission to Health System Royal Commission, 2005).
This is
probably relevant to the flood situation because there are claims from those with
pre-1990 flood expertise that such expertise was largely eliminated from
government (see attached email). Associated with the latter was a large document
by an individual with a very senior flood role in Department of Local Government
which appears to present arguments about deficiencies in relation to flood
analyses. I think I have a copy somewhere on my computer but cant currently
find it. The process of deskilling that arises in a politicised environment
involves embarrassment of senior staff when their lack of technical competence
is made obvious by junior staff and reasons are then found to show the
latter the door (see
Outline History
of the Breakdown of the Westminster Tradition in Queensland and of the Growth of
Public Service Bullying).
Thus it is possible that the engineers involved in managing the 2011 flood were
not up to the job and made mistakes (and subsequently distorted the record of
events to protect their backsides in a hostile environment). However, if so,
this cant simply be blamed on those individuals.
Note added later: "Greg
McMahon, a consultant who was the chief flood expert in Queensland's
local government department until the early 1990s, says attitudes to
dam safety became compromised during the late 1980s when "political
skulduggery" led to an effective lowering of standards. He explains
that when Wivenhoe was first conceived in the 1970s, Australian design
standards for large dams made of earth and rock required them to be
able to contain the flood created by the largest possible rain event
in the catchment, the "probable maximum precipitation". But soon after
Wivenhoe was completed in 1984, meteorologists realised they had
significantly underestimated the size of this epic deluge." [1]
There seem to be major problems with efforts to manage SE Queenslands
water supplies
(see
Structural Incompetence and SE Queensland's
Water Crisis). Wivenhoe Dam was built primarily as a flood mitigation project
rather than as a water supply source because its catchment is subjected to
very large but unreliable / infrequent rainfall. Everyone knew this in the
1980s, but in the 1990s this awareness seemed to have been lost because of the
Goss Governments restructuring and restaffing process. Thus Wivenhoe apparently
came to be regarded as a reliable water supply source and the necessity to
proceed with Wolffdene Dam was not recognised. Moreover, the process of
approving the Traveston Dam alternative was amateurish (because no one in their
right mind would commit to a shallow dam on an alluvial flood plain which
implies massive losses from evaporation and leakage). I am a bit cynical about
the claims that this dam was blocked on environmental grounds (see
Saving 'Brand Labor' from Traveston Dam? What
about Saving 'Brand Queensland' and 'Brand Australia'?.)
There seems
also to be serious problems with flood planning for SE Queensland because the
Brisbane River flood that has to be coped with has probably been grossly
under-estimated (perhaps because estimates are based on the relatively modest
rainfall events in the 20th century, while the much more severe floods in the
19th century are neglected, because
corresponding rainfall data is much less readily available). This issue is explored in
The Choice is not just between Flood Levees and Flood Levies (2011). In
practice the implication of this is that:
- It
is likely that the 10m flood compartment at Wivenhoe
Dam and the flood manual
were based on unrealistically
low estimates of the potential floods it could be exposed to.
The 1999 Brisbane River Flood Study suggested that
dams could be expected to be at full supply level (ie just below the
flood compartment) when a flood started, but this would be unsafe if
the potential flood was under-estimated. However this probably
did not make a lot of difference in 2011, as the flood experienced was
by no means one of the really big ones.
- Land use planning arrangements for Brisbane allowed development in areas that
are much too low and the fact that 100 year flood levels were raised by (I
think) 1m at Port Office gauge after the 2011 flood is in conformity with this, but
has perhaps not yet gone far enough (though I havent done any work to prove
this). The whistleblower report mentioned in the attached email implied that
this was a problem elsewhere in SE Queensland (eg at the Gold Coast);
- There has been concern about the possibility of Wivenhoe Dam being overtopped
and failing. This required the installation of fuse plugs at the dam which would
fail preferentially in the event of such a risk, and thus protect the structure
generally. However this required lowering the dams full supply level by (I
think) 1-2m, and thus reducing its water supply capacity;
- After the 2011 floods, it has been recognised that the 10m difference between
full supply level (at RL 67) and the flood level would not be enough to cope
with a major flood, so provision was made to reduce water levels prior to
expected major rainfall events. Once again this implies that Wivenhoes
potential as a water storage has been over-estimated;
While I have
an interest in this subject for various reasons (see
Authors Background and
The Choice is not just between Flood Levees and Flood Levies), I am by no
means able to express authoritative technical opinions about these matters
merely to point to apparent deficiencies in what has been done. I simply have
not had access to the information, time or specialised experience required to do
so. Also the above comments are made from memory, and could be improved with
more time.
Overall I see
the fact that probable deficiencies (and cover-ups) exist as largely symptomatic
of fundamental problems in Queenslands system of government concerning which
Queensland's Next Unsuccessful Premier offers some suggestions.
If these
limitations are recognised, I am quite happy for you to make any use of the
ideas in this email (or on my web-site) that you see fit. I have sent a copy to
Mike Darcy in the Opposition office because he also rang to seek my response.
John Craig
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Whistleblower's Action Group 2011 Press Release |
Extract from email sent to Gordon
Harris on 31/1/11 in response to his press release (as below)
PRESS RELEASE
THE FLOOD WAS PREDICTED - SO WAS THE ROYAL COMMISSION
By Whistleblowers Action Group Qld Inc
30 January 2011
More than fifteen years ago, flood professionals in the State Public
Service predicted that another 1974 flood would come to South East
Queensland about this time.
They also predicted that there would be a Royal Commission.
2013 2.5 years is how they expressed the year that it was likely to
occur in lay terms, this means that another 1974 flood would come
sometime during the five wet seasons from 2010/11 to 2014/15. That
prediction eventuated.
The prediction about the Royal Commission has also eventuated. That
prediction was based on what the flood professionals saw that local and
state governments were doing, or failing to do, with the hydrologic and
hydraulic information that the flood professionals were presenting to
government.
A lot of this information and expertise has been lost since the two
decades of flood studies that followed the 1974 floods. The Queensland
community needs to recover this vital information.
This loss of information occurred with the natural retirement of men and
women, 40 years or older, who worked on the flood studies in the two
decades following 1974. This loss of information was exacerbated further
by:
1. The alleged rough removal of hundreds of senior public servants from
government agencies upon the election of the Goss government;
2. The alleged mistreatment of whistleblowers who came forward with
disclosures about flooding and development matters after the Fitzgerald
reforms were perceived to have been implemented;
3. The politicization of the public services at State and local government
levels, through such changes as the loss of tenure for Senior Executive
Service and other principal appointments, and through the role played by
ministerial advisors;
4. The 'de-engineering' of the public service agencies involved in flood
engineering;
5. Circumventions of the Freedom of Information Act, and the tactics used
to deny knowledge of relevant issues
These professionals are unlikely to have confidence in the Flood
Commission as it is presently structured, Mr Gordon Harris, President of
Queensland's Whistleblower organisation, said today. This is the Forde
Inquiry without Forde most other players are the same, including Premier
Bligh who commissioned the 1998 Forde Inquiry as Minister for Families.
We need a Fitzgerald type inquiry, one that follows the disclosures. But
we also need more protection for whistleblowers. Protection did not occur
for the police whistleblowers in the Fitzgerald Inquiry, such as Inspector
Col Dillon, at the hands of the post Fitzgerald Queensland Police Force,
Mr Harris said.
We do not need another Forde type of Inquiry, one that limits itself to
restricted terms of reference and political interference, as did the Forde
Inquiry when clear allegations of cover-up by State Government came before
that Inquiry. Bans on any inquiry into the role of the State Government in
wrongdoing and maladministration, including cover-ups, regarding flooding
and development issues, cannot be allowed to occur again, he said.
The creeks in the Toowoomba region are not the only flood situations in
Queensland where there may be serious risk to life. Other situations are
alleged, for areas housing greater populations, populations dominated by
the young and by the retired, concentrated in layout, subject to sudden
night flooding, with minimum prospects for evacuation.
Current situations must be identified. Knowledge of the role of government
developers and private developers in generating these situations is vital
to efforts to arrest such risks and return the community to acceptable
levels of hazard from flooding. Mr Harris said.
The Whistleblowers Action Group recommends that a prominent whistleblower,
with appropriate experience from these post 74 flood studies, be placed on
the Commission.
To this end, Whistleblowers Action Group is writing to Premier Bligh and
Mr Langbroek, Leader of the Opposition, to seek the appointment of a
whistleblower with eminent credentials for any review of flood management
in Queensland to the Royal Commission.
We are seeking bipartisan support to such an appointment because the
involvement by such whistleblowers in flood management in all parts of
Queensland, after the 1974 floods, included service under governments of
both the Labor and Coalition Parties.
When it became known that one flood professional, code-named Warrior' by
the public service bureaucrats, had blown the whistle on the Queensland
Government, numbers of hydrologists, scientists, engineers and economists
approached Warrior with their concerns about particular decisions by
Government agencies involving water engineering.
The community can benefit from that same dynamic, if those flood
professionals with knowledge of the risks in place, have sufficient
confidence in the Commission to come forward.
The 2010/11 wet season is only the first season of the predicted window of
wet seasons when major flooding is likely to occur. If we have entered a
period where major flooding has an increased likelihood, it behoves the
Queensland Government to do its best to obtain all lost' information, in
some cases, from officers who may have been severely mistreated by the
system which they served and to which they had offered their expertise.
There are other choices, Mr Harris claimed today. We support calls by the
legal profession in this State for a restructure to the Flood Commission,
but for stronger reasons.
It is noted that Tony Fitzgerald, prior to his famous Inquiry, completed a
formal opinion for the Brisbane City Council on improving flood mitigation
and control legislation, according to information given to the Group. When
a Commissioner between 1987 and 1989, he went beyond the original terms of
his Inquiry. This the Forde Inquiry failed to do with serious allegations
against the Government. Fitzgerald followed the disclosures made to his
Inquiry. Enough was not done, however, to protect, post the Fitzgerald
Inquiry, the police who made his Inquiry a success.
We cannot make that mistake again. the President of Whistleblowers said.
We are seeking bipartisan support for a whistleblower to go onto the
Commission.
POC: President Gordon Harris, through the Secretary on 07 3378 7232
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