Public comments may have closed on the CSIRO’s fifteen proposed mitigation measures to protect Lismore, Ballina, Kyogle and Casino from the worst of future flood emergencies, but criticism of the process has only become more strident.
Upper Richmond catchment resident and recent candidate for the federal seat of Page, Dr Luke Robinson, told The Echo that affected communities need sustainable solutions to minimise flood impacts.
‘Recently I attended the community consultation forums run by NEMA/CSIRO on the newly released Richmond catchment flood model. Like many others, I am deeply appreciative of the hard work and expertise Dr Jai Vaze and his CSIRO team have put into developing this complex model.
‘People have expressed their disappointment however that all fifteen mitigation options put forward for modelling were hard engineering measures, with no nature-based solutions included. They also said it was unrealistic to expect community members to rank their preferred mitigation options given they were so vaguely defined and with no information on their likely considerable economic, environmental, social or cultural costs.
‘These factors need to be made explicit at each stage of the process, though this would appear to be the job of NEMA rather than the CSIRO, with its more technical remit,’ said Dr Robinson.
‘An important part of a community consultation process is for people to hear and learn from each other, not just the experts. I was fortunately able to attend Woodburn and Lismore forums, gaining insights from the broader community beyond Lismore also affected by proposed mitigation measures.
‘Clearly local knowledge and the effects of major flooding on different areas of a catchment are part of the bigger picture for informed decision making.’
Nature based solutions
Modern ideas like regenerative agriculture and wetland reinstatement don’t appear in the CSIRO’s document. Instead there are multiple mentions of ‘retention basins’, which sound remarkably like dams, and would be required in impossible numbers to mitigate flooding disasters of the scale seen in recent years.
NGO Richmond Riverkeeper weighed in to the CSIRO process on social media by asking, ‘Where does a fishable, swimmable, drinkable river exist in the options?’
In order to avoid future fish kills or serious damage to the river, the organisation said it stood with OzFish Unlimited and Richmond Landcare Inc by calling for an option that wasn’t on the CSIRO’s limited menu, namely, ‘Prioritising reforestation of riparian and floodplain areas in upper sub-catchment streams, as a nature-based solution, at a landscape scale using Richmond Landcare Inc. and Macquarie University data’.
They went on to say, ‘We strongly oppose option twelve consisting of further drainage of the Tuckean Swamp that will cause further catastrophic damage to the health of our river, and we expect be ineffective as a catchment-wide flood mitigation measure.’
Whatever happens next, it’s clear that asking the community to vote in a popularity contest for a number of options with no proper modelling or scientific rigour behind them is potentially a road to disaster.
Louissa Rogers is the project manager for the Nature-based Solutions pilot project in the Lismore catchment, which was funded by the National Emergency Management Agency, with the aim of building flood resilience using reforestation. They have already planted 15,000 trees and are seeing excellent results.
Strangely, NEMA is also the organisation administering the Northern Rivers Resilient Initiative with scientific input from the CSIRO. This is the document which includes no nature-based solutions, but instead includes some extremely reckless-sounding options, such as creating new channels from the Richmond system to the sea and making the Bagotville barrage higher, rather than removing it, as has been suggested recently to avoid further catastrophic fish kills.
A better way?
Landcare science is full of surprises, such as the finding that adding just a one percent increase in soil organic matter in topsoil across one hectare can hold up to 30,000 litres of water. Richmond Landcare Inc has provided more detail about what nature-based solutions look like in this document.
The Echo also sought comment from David Tomlinson, convenor of a multi-disciplinary, non affiliated group with a strong interest in this subject, Lismore a Way Forward. LAWF was formed immediately after the 2022 floods with the aim of making the area more adaptive to climate change.
Mr Tomlinson said, ‘LAWF has always supported the CSIRO in its endeavour to model flood mitigation measures in the greater Richmond catchment area. However we are concerned about a number of issues.’
He says it was an ‘unfortunate omission’ not to include among the fifteen options flood calming measures which can significantly reduce damage to communities, such as revegetation of the catchment and tree belts.
‘Slowing down the water velocity and giving more time for residents to react to flood warnings would result in significant advantages to our residents and the infrastructure on the flood plain,’ he said.
‘We believe calming measures as well as engineering solutions such as higher levees should be modelled to give us the information we need to make informed decisions.
‘We are also concerned that climate change is not being factored into modelled flood scenarios. We must recognise that higher floods are now more likely and we need information to see what damage they would do. Modelling a Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) would seem to be essential.
‘We can then make informed decisions about future planning options including residential, commercial and industrial development,’ said Mr Tomlinson.
‘Because of the gargantuan size of the model, only around three scenarios can be run before the CSIRO contract expires in June next year. Given all the possible options, we don’t believe three runs of the model are enough.
We are also concerned about what happens when the modelling is complete,’ he said. ‘This is a complex area involving technical, economic, financial, social and environmental factors. We believe a community-lead expert panel would be the best way to go. This would have to be established by the NSW state government.’
Richmond under threat
Sam Johnson, Coastal Wetlands Community Organiser for the NSW Nature Conservation Council has gone even further, attacking what he describes as a ‘biased consultation process’.
He said, ‘The beautiful Baluun/Richmond River is under threat, and urgently needs your help. $11 million of public money is being spent modelling huge engineering projects that could lead to mass fish kills, acidic water, droughts, job losses, erosion, and other irreversible damage.
‘The “Northern Rivers Resilience Initiative” started as a well-meaning effort to protect the Northern Rivers from flooding, but now threatens to justify the worst environmental vandalism the river has seen in decades,’ said Mr Johnson.
‘This process, led by federal agencies NEMA and CSIRO, is seriously jeopardising the community perceptions and integrity of public science.’
He went on to say, ‘We know there’s a stronger evidence base for nature-positive projects than draining acid swamps. Apparently so does NEMA, who recently invested $2.8 million in Richmond Landcare’s Nature Based Solutions project. So why are they not allowing the community to vote for these kind of options at all?’
National Party figures rejoice
The only people who seem happy with the short list of solutions offered by the CSIRO are National Party aligned figures such as Lismore Mayor Steve Krieg and Member for Page Kevin Hogan, who have both consistently called for engineering solutions to flooding problems that clearly can’t be solved with more concrete.
Mr Hogan recently presented a petition to the CSIRO calling for an engineered reduction of 1-2 metres in extreme flood level, which sounds lovely until you spend two seconds thinking about what this would require in practice.
Local citizen Daniel John Peterson told The Echo, ‘I stood next to this poor co-opted scientist just after this photo was taken in the Workers Club foyer. He was shaking his head. I asked what was wrong. He felt angry being asked to join in this photo, because as he said “I am a scientist, not political”.
‘Did Hogan’s office actually gain his consent before publicly posting this photo? If yes, where’s the consent? The scientist told me explicitly right there and then, that any claimed 1-2 metre flood height reduction was absolute “bullshit”.’
With public comment on the CSIRO plan already over before most people knew it was open, The Echo has sought answers from CSIRO project leader Dr Jai Vaze to the following five questions, but not yet received a response:
1. Why have only hard engineering solutions been proposed for consideration, and not nature-based mitigation measures?
2. Is the CSIRO actually considering creating new channels from the Richmond River to the sea? Have the environmental effects of this been modelled?
3. What does the ‘Bagotville barrage upgrade’ option mean, and are you aware of the serious environmental damage the existing barrage has caused?
4. Is the CSIRO suggesting that it’s possible to seriously reduce the risk of catastrophic flooding in the Northern Rivers purely through the use of additional engineering measures, if such measures could ever be funded and built?
5. Is the CSIRO aware of the work of the Northern Rivers Watershed Initiative, and is there any plan to liaise with those experts as the region seeks mitigation of future flood risk?
What next?
As Dr Luke Robinson puts it, ‘Going forward, it’s important to remember that mitigation measures are not the only way to deal with the impacts of flooding.
‘Indeed, in many places it may be that the only guaranteed way to keep people safe is to get them off the floodplains. Done once and properly, this is likely to be cheaper in the long term than dealing with repeated disasters, or the cost of building, providing compensation for and maintaining massive hard engineering projects which cannot be guaranteed to work, especially given the vagaries of nature and a changing climate.
‘Our communities look forward to ongoing deep and respectful engagement with the CSIRO, NEMA and all levels of government as we work towards long-term, sustainable solutions that truly protect us and our precious natural home.’
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
