# Forum More Stuff At the end of the day  Greens' policy induced Hawkesbury floods

## Marc

Yes, this flood is a direct result of the campaign by the greens _not to_ lift the warragamba dam wall 14 meters as it was proposed. 
Yes, they fought to preserve some rare crap and some even more rare and imaginary crap.  
Cost of the project one billion, cost of the clean up (conservatively) 2 billions. Thank you greens, you belong in an asylum for the demented and the government needs to be flogged in public for giving you any credit. I say 20 lashes each, in Martin Place.  
Below see pic of my boat hanging to it's mooring for dear life.
The complete absence of any warning of any description ... thank you NSW gov, you declared in front of the TV that you knew 6 month ago. How lovely (see, they know better, we are the peasants) ... anyway, since no one bothered giving us any token warning, a vestige of an idea of what they knew was coming, by the time I realised this was serious, the path for my 4wd to get to the trailer and pull the boat up was cut off. Ground too soft to venture even with 4wd and locked diffs. 
So she is battling it on her own, attached to my home made mooring pontoon. If you look at the neighbours pontoon in the photo below, it seems I was better than the 'professionals' who built those two other ones. 
This kind of mooring that is held in place by the access ramp anchored to the shore, with no pylons, is good providing there are no boats moored to them in times of flood. A more effective method requires long wooden pylons driven in the river bed with a driving punt, but they require a permit, and cost a bomb.           
Meantime, the greens should be declared a terrorist organisation.  https://youtu.be/23t2bHZdqMM

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## phild01

Did anyone really know that such a deluge was about to happen. I only heard 6 months ago that summer would be wetter.
 Agree, ignore the Greens and raise the dam before they find a colony of Corroboree frogs.
Also greedy councils approving non-flood compliant housing that can't be insured.

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## PhilT2

Got to admire the optimism of somebody who buys a house beside a river and and acts surprised when affected by a flood. 
not wanting to get into the politics but last I looked the greens were not in charge of NSW.

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## Marc

> Did anyone really know that such a deluge was about to happen. I only heard 6 months ago that summer would be wetter.
>  Agree, ignore the Greens and raise the dam before they find a colony of Corroboree frogs.
> Also greedy councils approving non-flood compliant housing that can't be insured.

  The different water authorities where on TV last week competing with each other about who knew about this earlier than the other. One said we knew 6 month ago ... the other assured matter of fact that they knew 18 month ago. 
Now ... I have deep contempt for politicians, not to mention local morons, but my point is that the council had grants for early flood warnings and they built a shiny map with shiny lights in the council chambers ... and our river is not even in that map.  And we got no warning from all the detailed data they keep under wraps for themselves. 
Yes, the approval for developments with no infrastructure in marginal areas, many flood prone is endemic and those approving them should be dragged in court and trialled. 
But then ... how would councillors make their money?

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## John2b

> Agree, ignore the Greens and raise the dam before they find a colony of Corroboree frogs.
> Also greedy councils approving non-flood compliant housing that can't be insured.

  The raised Warragamba Dam would have held off the flood by about 2-3 days. It is doubtful that peak levels in the floodplains would have been lowered by much at all. 
What is flood compliant housing? Houses on 6 metre high poles?

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## phild01

> The raised Warragamba Dam would have held off the flood by about 2-3 days. It is doubtful that peak levels in the floodplains would have been lowered by much at all.

  Raising the Warragamba Dam wall would significantly mitigate lowland flooding, but not eliminate it. The dam is a water supply dam, it is not a flood mitigation dam and I agree that the water should never be released for that purpose. But raising the dam wall would change that function to some significant degree.  

> What is flood compliant housing? Houses on 6 metre high poles?

  Would not a slab on the ground solid masonry home be salvageable if it were flooded, just insurance for loss of fixtures and contents would massively reduce insurance premiums. They would be more fire resilient too.

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## Marc

> The raised Warragamba Dam would have held off the flood by about 2-3 days. It is doubtful that peak levels in the floodplains would have been lowered by much at all.

  Nonsense at so many levels that I will not dignify with a reply.

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## METRIX

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/c...03-p52djf.html

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## Uncle Bob

> Yes, this flood is a direct result of the campaign by the greens _not to_ lift the warragamba dam wall 14 meters as it was proposed.

  Who's fault would have it been if the dam was never built then?

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## johnc

> Who's fault would have it been if the dam was never built then?

  
The greens of course, plus those communists, council workers and don't forget the unemployed, it couldn't have been the Liberal government who actually had some power they are to distracted trying to get it on with the office staff. This is an irrigation not a flood mitigation dam, with strong water flows an higher wall will have limited effect if the dam is already full. It may simply move the flood peak slightly, even then flood peaks may not be lowered much. I haven't followed much on this dam but if we are going to fling around blame try at least to not pick targets that clearly have little bearing on the situation. 
Let's hope Marc's boat survives the water flow.

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## phild01

> https://www.smh.com.au/environment/c...03-p52djf.html

   Contrary to what I heard recently if only I could find it.

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## John2b

> Contrary to what I heard recently if only I could find it.

  I't not hard to work out that if the raised wall hold an extra ~1000Mlt (government figures), and the dam was spilling ~500Mlt per day (government figures) then it will hold two day's more water under the current circumstances. Add that to the fact that much of the floodwater is entering the floodplain downstream of the dam and it becomes obvious that the effect of the higher dam wall would have been minimal for the current event. Which is probably why the Australian insurance industry has withdrawn their support for raising the dam wall for flood management in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley, i.e. because it will not mitigate their risk.

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## Moondog55

There were pre-existing flood control areas, they just filled them with houses, lots and lots of inappropriate houses etc: they are called floodplains for well known reasons.

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## johnc

There is an irrigation dam on the Macalister river that has seen many floods in its time, some floods because or either human error or off target forcasts have seen the downstream flooding risk made worse because of the dam, other times it has certainly mitigated risk. These was one rain event that saw the dam receive 2.5 times its capacity in a very short period, don't think the dam made much difference as it had been near full and the gates had to be open to stop the dam failing as a large number of logs washed downstream had added to water height with the new accidental barrier. The link Metrix posted is interesting insofar as it would appear science and engineering have combined to provide a view more reliable then the hysterical reaction and blame we sometimes see.

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## phild01

> I't not hard to work out that if the raised wall hold an extra ~1000Mlt (government figures), and the dam was spilling ~500Mlt per day (government figures) then it will hold two day's more water under the current circumstances.

  Holding back twice the water in Sydney Harbour is significant as it is half the dams capacity again. You say 2 days but with slow release it may equate to 4 days and the sudden flooding would be minimised to allow people more time to react, and this assumes a full dam as when such an event may happen.  
I feel sorry for the poor guy at Glenorie who found himself trapped in his car ... speculation is the electrical's failed and he couldn't get out, was his first day for a new job.

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## Bart1080

It was already floating at 97% to 99% full for the last 2+ months.  
Would raising the wall 14m be any different?  Couldn't there still be a likely outcome of the dam at 99% full due to the significant inflows over the last 4 months?? https://twitter.com/MikeySlezak/stat...541637/photo/1 
Given the government changes allowing insurance companies to factor in a larger risk to their premiums, a lot will not has insurance whilst gov still allowing large growth in subdivisions within these flood plains compounding the issue of recovery within these communities.

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## Marc

> I feel sorry for the poor guy at Glenorie who found himself trapped in his car ... speculation is the electrical's failed and he couldn't get out, was his first day for a new job.

  The accident happened in Cattai Ck, attempting to cross the Murphys Bridge in flood. Car was swept away by the fast moving and way too deep water, straight in the deep end. He never had a chance. We go through there all the time. It is a fast moving creek in a hilly area, that feeds from rainwater only being high up and away from the river level. It is back to normal now whilst the Hawkesbury at Ebenezer where it ends, is still at major flood level.
This is the location of the accident.  http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDN60233/I...7117.plt.shtml 
As a side note, I spoke to the minister incharge when the bridge was rebuilt some 5 or so years ago, asking why did they build it at the exact same level the old was and without significant railings. The answer was another classic ... it is a "heritage" bridge and had to be kept the same as the original. I am sure the ancestors in their graves are clapping hysterically.  
A raised wall would have made significant difference to this general outcome, giving a long buffer for the release of water, despite the armchair experts here and elsewhere who can't locate the river on a map. It is so blatantly obvious that those against the wall and those in favor align perfectly, not with local knowledge or experience or scientific data, but simply political left and political right. Quoting the SMH or aboriginal sites is a classic.  
Of course there are other factors too. The mismanagement of the water release that should have been way lower, and was kept by the minister for ignorance and fear of "losing" water storage for consumption. Why is this decision in her hands and not with expert is amazing. Do this morons operate on gut feeling?  
 And I agree with those who suspect the rising of the wall is backed by hidden agendas of yet more subdivisions release, by local councils desperate for rezoning and cash galore from developers.  
Another proof that the present system of government has run its course, and must change.
We are now back to the situation hundreds of years ago with the corrupt Kings and their corrupt cohorts and courtesans.
Our current version of King George the III in Biden, is a good example. With the unfortunate difference that King George was there just because he was born, yet Biden is there because the people put him there. Who are those people who put him there is however, a different topic just as fascinating.
We live in interesting times. 
Just in case you missed it in my first post, here it is again  :Smilie:   https://youtu.be/23t2bHZdqMM

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## Marc

Another good idea besides rising the dam wall, is a bypass canal. A large canal or pipe going from the Warragamba river to Berowra Creek. It will be dry for most of the time, only used to bypass the slow and convoluted Hawkesbury when there is too much water coming down. Rather simple really. 
Actually Phil, you are right, The guy was sitting in his car for 40 minutes on the phone with 000. The signs saying road closed were put on the side buy the locals when I passed there on Saturday morning, because the water had subsided then, and gates were open.
 Someone closed the gates later when the water came up again, yet when the guy drove there Monday morning the gate was under water 6m. Couldn't see the gates or the signs or drove past the signs we will never know.  
So he hit the water and couldn't unlock the doors.
He tried desperately to get out as the water rose around him. I didn't know it was so difficult to break a car window, but obviously it is.   
I am buying one of this now and screw it to the door post.https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/38362802...09076d16c5e19c

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## METRIX

> despite the armchair experts here and elsewhere who can't locate the river on a map. It is so blatantly obvious that those against the wall and those in favor align perfectly, not with local knowledge or experience or scientific data, but simply political left and political right. Quoting the SMH or aboriginal sites is a classic.

  Marc, I think you need to have a lie down, talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
I have no interest in politics whatsoever, never have, never will, they are all overpaid bunch of clowns, from the left or right, green, red or wherever they are from. 
Do a bit of research you may find it's not only the greens who opposed the raising of the dam, it was also Labour, and the insurance companies themselves didn't see any real value in performing the task as the drop in flooding risk from a major event was minimal. 
There was some valid reasons environmentally / culturally for not raising the wall. 
I won't post any links to these articles as I'm just an armchair expert, I'm sure you can find this information if you go looking.

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## Marc

> Who's fault would have it been if the dam was never built then?

  If you are talking about the Warragamba dam, it was built for Sydney drinking water supply. No dam, no Sydney. 
Not for flood mitigation and not for irrigation. 
Successive local governments took it on themselves to release more and more land for subdivision, and the population in low areas from Penrith to Windsor and beyond grew on what was previously farms for Sydney green supplies. Veggie farms in Windsor and Richmond took their produce to windsor and it was taken to Sydney by water, down the Hawkesbury, out to sea and down to Sydney. 
The veggie farms all all gone replaced by suburbs. 
Who to blame? No particular person or party, simply 100 years of council greed and mismanagement whilst state government and federal government look the other way.  
But that is history. We are now 100 years later. The existing dam will need to have a double function of storage and flood mitigation.
Considering that we have more than doubled the population and kept the storage the same, as storage goes, it is barely adequate. 
For flood mitigation is is ok if the flood happens with the level half way down more or less. With the level up, of course the flood mitigation function is zero. 
There are two ways to go about this. We can keep the maximum level after which the water starts getting released, lower, so to have a buffer to stop flood ... or ... we need to rise the wall to have said buffer.
A third alternative is a bypass canal, from Warragamba river, to Berowra creek or somewhere else close to the sea, to operate once the dam starts to spill over. 
There will still be floods but they will be less severe and localised depending purely on local rainfall alone. 
The obvious and much better alternative to all of the above is a second dam further up, to function purely as flood mitigation.  
And pigs will fly.
Why?   

> Marc, I think you need to have a lie down, talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
> I have no interest in politics whatsoever, never have, never will, they are all overpaid bunch of clowns, from the left or right, green, red or wherever they are from. 
> Do a bit of research you may find it's not only the greens who opposed the raising of the dam, it was also Labour, and the insurance companies themselves didn't see any real value in it.

  As much as you don't like it, it will be the greens and labor to try to stop it due to the left inbuilt idiosyncrasy. No it's not only the green and labor ... no no no ... it is also the left that has infiltrated the liberal party, the media, universities and schools. 
It's blatantly obvious. Left = no dams, Left = climate change (so called) "action" 
If you like it or not ... doesn't really matter doesn't it ? 
The kettle or the pot or the blackness of their soot, is as relevant to this, as the price of prosciutto is to a Rabbi.  
Boat is still hanging on and water is about 1/2 meter lower now. It's looking real promising. Thank you for the good wishes. 
House and buildings are all above the 100 years level.

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## Bart1080

We cant predict the future mother nature will bring with any real accuracy  
Your damned if you do and damned if you don't...is the pleasant way of explaining it without expletives!!!  
Keep the dam lower and then we have a 10 year drought running short of water, keep it full and then we risk flooding.
Its a guessing game at best to know what, when and how much mother nature will deliver to balance out both risks let alone the exact timing to apply the applicable strategy.
With population increases in higher risk areas, its inevitable more will be affected by mother nature (flood, fire, drought, tsunamis, earthquakes, cyclones etc)  
Errors will be made with the wonders of hind sight and other errors with just plain stupidity 
....and all for 1001 reasons or opinions of said arm chair experts including myself  :Smilie:

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## Marc

Peak of the flood Wednesday. 6m of water under the boat, where there is usually just one. 
Most mooring swept away. A neighbour had his mooring block, 2 tons of concrete dragged 500 meters. 
The ramp to the pontoon is now horizontal, down about 4 meters from this photo.  
Clean up begins next weekend. The ramp winch may have gone under, not sure yet. If that is the case, I will most likely repair it myself. I am not keen to make any claims on my flood insurance that is rather cheap because I never claim anything. The mechanism is a series of pulleys and chains, the motor has exterior cooling but is by no means waterproof as far as I know. Oh well, worse case I am up for a new motor. Taking it to a rewinding workshop for a clean up may not be worth it ... not sure.

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## John2b

All the effort you put into constructing your mooring was worth it. Great result!

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## Marc

Thank you. Definitely over engineered when compared to standard moorings. 
At the time I asked a local engineering firm to give me some pointers, especially in relation to the bracing. I followed their instructions to cross the bracing cables under the ramp. I remember he said the more parallel to the current flow you have the cables, the better. Usually people if they have bracing cables at all, they have them from the corner of the pontoon to the edge of the ramp. 
Last year I put a pylon upriver and in line with the hinge, 4 meters down in the sand,  with a third cable. This I believe was the reason the lot held so well despite the additional load from the boat. By having a third fixed point, in the same plane, the system couldn't twist once the water was up. A gambit that paid up. 
Leaving the boat moored in a flood was however, a stupid move. 
The neighbour who took the photo, sent it to me with the comment ... "Look, the park bench is still there!"
It is in fact bolted down and anchored with chains under the seat. You can see the chains in the photo   :Smilie:  
On another subject, I wonder if we will ever know why the pakistani guy was left to die in his car after talking for 40 minutes to 000. And when they sent someone they sent the police! What can the police do almost an hour later. When they got there the car was 6 meters under.

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## Bros

> Oh well, worse case I am up for a new motor. Taking it to a rewinding workshop for a clean up may not be worth it ... not sure.

   Take the end plates off it and put it out in the sun for a few days and it will be OK.

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## Marc

It's one of those closed motors with the fan on the outside. Is it just a matter of loosening the little nuts on the rods that holds it all together? No need to mess with connections?

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## phild01

> On another subject, I wonder if we will ever know why the pakistani guy was left to die in his car after talking for 40 minutes to 000. And when they sent someone they sent the police! What can the police do almost an hour later. When they got there the car was 6 meters under.

  Police claim it was only a 3 minute call, who knows what to believe! Surely a chopper could have been called in quickly to locate him.

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## Marc

> A 25-year-old man driving to work for his first day as a contractor with a large commercial organisation was found dead in his hire car several metres below the water in Cattai Creek, next to Cattai Ridge Road Bridge, in Glenorie at 1.10pm this afternoon (Wednesday, March 24). The Western Sydney man called emergency services at about 6.25am saying he had driven into flood waters and his vehicle was sinking. The 000 operator stayed talking to the man but lost contact with him at 7.04am. Officers from The Hills Police Area Command attended the scene on Cattai Ridge Road, near Hidden Valley Lane, along with SES Flood Rescue, shortly afterwards but could not locate the vehicle. Police divers located the vehicle which was 6 metres under water just after 1pm. Detective Inspector Chris Laird said there were signs that the man had tried to get out of the car but had not been able to. Det Insp Laird said that the padlocked gate across the road was 10m underwater and could not be seen. He confirmed that there were road closure signs on the road. He said the man was a Pakistani national who had been living in Australia for some time. He has not yet been formally identified. He said his friends were devastated. He said the 25-year-old had been driving a brand new Toyota Camry hire car. “We can only speculate why he couldn’t get out of the car, initial examinations show he made all reasonable attempts and that will form part of our inquiries as to why he couldn’t leave the car.” He said part of the investigation would look at whether the electrics failed preventing him from getting out of the car. He said the coronial investigations would also look at whether the closures of the road were made properly visible enough at the time of the incident. Insp Laird said the locked gates across the road were submerged and could not be seen from the road way at all. “What happened was a complete tragedy.”

  The car was not sinking, since it was still on the pavement and away from the main current in the center of the creek, but it was the water level rising around him. I can still not understand the inability to break the window or kick the windscreen out.

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## phild01

> I can still not understand the inability to break the window or kick the windscreen out.

  You would need something handy like a hammer to break the glass and water pressure might make kicking the glass out difficult. I guess if you ever found yourself in that predicament would be to at least fully wind your window down at the first sign of water difficulty.
I do wonder why a chopper wasn't quickly called in at least for a visual to locate him.

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## Bros

> It's one of those closed motors with the fan on the outside. Is it just a matter of loosening the little nuts on the rods that holds it all together? No need to mess with connections?

  Its a TEFC motor and not designed for submerging. You could take the end plates off and hit it with a hair dryer over a few days and it will dry out, maybe you are lucky and it didn't submerge.

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## Bros

I've seen the blame game before in the Brisbane floods that seem to happen every 20 or so years. After a few years all goes back to normal and people continue to build on the flood prone areas and probably hope that wont be there when the next one happens. 
Didn't I see some blaming about bushfires early last year now mostly forgotten the flood will go the same way the only change will be by the insurance companies raising premiums or just refusing to insure.

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## Moondog55

This area flooded well before there were Greens etc:
The damage is all to do with inappropriate houses, poor town planning, and far too many people building on good fertile farm and gardening land. Why is it fertile? Because it's a flood plain. It's not rocket science and has nothing to do with the damned dam. I do believe tho that a good public thrashing of all involved in the poor planning and approval process would probably make those who have lost everything feel better; but a part of me says it's due to their building or buying in the wrong spot in the first instance and a self inflicted wound.

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## Marc

Moon, that is a disingenuous and simplistic comment. There were floods before and there will be floods in the future. So what? 
If you want to look back in history be my guest. The floods before the building of the dam, (that was for drinking water storage and never for flood mitigation), were way more frequent and severe. A few of the most famous floods after the building of the dam, were attributed to keeping the top level too high and then releasing way too much in one go, a bit like happens in Brisbane now and then. it's called mismanagement.
The wall was raised I believe it was some 5 or 6 meters to increase storage capacity and that did some good to floods for a while, yet it was not the intended purpose. We are now at a point that the wall needs raising much more and that portion to remain empty to act for flood mitigation. 
Yes there were too many land release by the greedy local council whilst the state government looks away. Sure. Do you like to blame the owners of the properties? You can do so if you want. I like to blame fat people for their diabetes and goat, but that is usually not a very popular line of thought.
 Why do we obsess with keeping the level high and not release the precious water? Easy answer, too many people (immigration to swell the taxpayers numbers) and therefore too many houses, (easy money to be made with rezoning), conflict of interests everywhere you turn. Storage capacity the same and population doubled.  
What escapes those lovers of tadpoles and rare crickets, is that said tadpoles and crickets are lost, not to the dam, whatever height it will end up being, but to the millions of new housing development up north and down south. For each house that is built, there is 500 m2 of roof, concrete, additional road and driveway that takes every drop of water and shoves it in a pvc pipe to shoot real fast into the nearest creek. Yet the capacity of the creek is the same it was 100 years ago. Actually it is way less, thanks to silting up and ... By Jove, don't you dare dredging it, that is sacrilege! and if you dredge, the sacred cow will dump on you big time.  
I was in Launceston recently and found their harbour silted up so badly that the boats sit in the mud twice a day. The dredging operations that kept it going for hundred years, was given up thanks to a "report" by "experts" who said that dredging will not change the floods. I would like to go to those people house and pour concrete in their house gutters up to half way, and see how they enjoy the gutter overflowing.  
The greens induced "No dredging" and "No dam" and "no" to everything in favour of those living here and now, is a contrarian obsession that does not pass muster. Most of the greens obstination and crusades are deserving of a better cause. How about reducing the number of assessors on the government payroll? Say fire 1000 of them? Sounds fair? Now there is a good cause. Start painting the placards guys!  :Smilie:  
For those with the feet on the ground, it is lift the wall, build a canal, dredge the river, and hang the councillors by their feets who approve new estates.

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## Moondog55

Is that hanging by the feet before or after the public thrashing???
You really should stop blaming "The Greens" Marc, because they have never held any real power or the balance of power. 
Although shooting all the lawyers and politicians might be a good start on cleaning up Australia.
Sometimes the "simple" answer is the correct one.

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## Marc

Mm ... not so fast. "Green" is a state of mind, not necessarily a party membership or vote. It's those who think simplistic thought like ... electric car is greener than petrol car. 
or "I am green because i have a solar panel on my roof". The fact that producing it contaminated a place in china for the next 300 years is not on my radar. How about no nuclear energy ... or no nuclear submarine!  Now that is green for sure. 
The grades of green go from just ignorance all the way to terrorism. Not much good in most green ideas. May be some ... like ... mm ... I'll get back to you.  :Smilie:

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## Bros

> I was in Launceston recently and found their harbour silted up so badly that the boats sit in the mud twice a day. The dredging operations that kept it going for hundred years, was given up thanks to a "report" by "experts" who said that dredging will not change the floods.

  Do you really think the majority of the population care about boat owners?

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## Marc

There you go again with yet another simplistic question. Launceston suffers from severe floods and dredging the Tamar river kept this floods at bay. Stopping the dredging made the floods worse, and they were stopped on false pretenses from false experts. Boat owners are ordinary people who happen to love the waterways and know a bit more than most about them. Floods affect ordinary Australians not boat owners, if anything boat owners know better and take precautions (not like me). It's easy to move a boat, not so easy to move a house.

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## PhilT2

> Do you really think the majority of the population care about boat owners?

  This is a political discussion, don't go asking for facts here. The important thing is that we find somebody to blame.

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## r3nov8or

> Do you really think the majority of the population care about boat owners?

  I care about Marc

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## John2b

The Three Gorges Dam, by far the world's largest flood mitigation dam, is quite possibly going to breach in the next few weeks. One thing in common between the Warramgamba and Three Gorges dams is both contain only a small fraction of annual flows; and that's the rub - neither will stop flooding from ever occurring and both will likely make flooding worse when it does occur.

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## Marc

A dam on itself is unlikely to be the silver bullet, but it helps. A dam with no buffer between high level and spillover is useless for flood mitigation purposes. 
Everyone has an opinion and my earlier observation that political confessions divides pro-dam and anti-dam at perfection, seems rather accurate. 
Besides people's likes and dislikes, it stands to reason that a complex case like the city of Sydney that is forever growing with no plan, dumping ground of migration and housing developments scattered nilli willi, needs a closer look to history up to current status.  
Rainfall is only predictable to a certain extent. Planning must be for worse case scenario. Unless we acknowledge that rainfall on a solid roof is not the same that rainfall in a forest, and that cutting down the forest to pave it and roof it will create a problem, we will keep on repeating history. 
Water that is rushed by roofs, streets and pipes needs to go somewhere at the same speed. Creeks and rivers need to be deepened. channels need to be built, and yes, dams play their role too. Not in isolation, but in combination to all of the above and more. I am no hydrologist, but a life long on the water in 3 continents gives me a bit of an idea of how floods behave.  
What does not help are dogmatic opinions, fuelled by political or doctrinal convictions like this one.
By Tim Flannery, professor of dud predictions and climate falsehoods.

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## phild01

> will likely make flooding worse when it does occur.

   :Confused:

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## Bart1080

> Easy answer, too many people (immigration to swell the taxpayers numbers) and therefore too many houses, (easy money to be made with rezoning), conflict of interests everywhere you turn.

  ...here here, massive populations and constant population growth are not everything despite the world economies based on it and something no country on the planet wants to change....unfortunately.

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## Moondog55

> The Three Gorges Dam, by far the world's largest flood mitigation dam, is quite possibly going to breach in the next few weeks. One thing in common between the Warramgamba and Three Gorges dams is both contain only a small fraction of annual flows; and that's the rub - neither will stop flooding from ever occurring and both will likely make flooding worse when it does occur.

  Is the 3Gorges a real flood mitigation dam tho? Flood mitigation dams are usually built with open bottoms so it doesn't restrict normal water flow.

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## John2b

Originally the Three Georges Dam was conceived for flood mitigation, but it also serves the purpose of allowing 10,000 ton ships (up to ~150m long) upstream of the dam, regulates water flow in the summer and generates hydroelectricity. Prior to the construction of the dam, as many as 3.7 million people died in one flood event in 1931, and there were seasonal floods most years.

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## John2b

> Yes there were too many land release by the greedy local council whilst the state government looks away. ...  too many people (immigration to swell the taxpayers numbers) and therefore too many houses, (easy money to be made with rezoning), conflict of interests everywhere you turn.

   All the fault of the greens - who would have thort?!

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