Farmers say state faces ‘catastrophic’ flooding as result of mismanagement of Lake Eildon
Victorian farmers have been forced to consider a class action as they brace for ‘catastrophic’ flooding as a result of the alleged mismanagement of Lake Eildon.
Victoria
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Victorian farmers have warned the state is facing more catastrophic flooding, and have accused water authorities of ignoring the threat of a looming disaster.
Farmers and residents along the Goulburn River, who are still recovering from last year’s devastating floods, say they are bracing for even worse flooding as a result of the mismanagement of Lake Eildon by Goulburn Murray Water.
They say another flood would be more catastrophic than the October 2022 flood as the damage to riverbanks, infrastructure and housing has still not been dealt with.
Last year’s major flooding damaged almost 500,000 hectares of farmland across regional Victoria, leaving a damage bill in excess of $840m.
Record rainfall lashed the state, with hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops destroyed and more than 12,000 head of livestock lost.
Local farmer Rowan Kennedy said GMW’s policy of filling Lake Eildon to capacity in wet years meant any inflow into the lake which raised the level to above 100 per cent had to be immediately discharged.
“If the inflow is of flood proportions, as was the case in October 2022, then the water discharged will of itself create a flood,” he said.
“In 2022, GMW managed the lake in breach of its statutory duties, one of which was to mitigate flooding.
“This year, GMW has indicated that it will manage the lake in the same manner.
“It seems that GMW water is gambling on there being no significant rain event in October or November of this year.
“GMW gambled on such an outcome last 2022 and look what happened – we all lost.”
The farmers argue that GMW should operate Lake Eildon at 88 per cent capacity in late winter and spring in wet years.
The lake is currently at 97 per cent capacity.
“If it operated Lake Eildon in this manner in October 2022, there would have been no flood damage in the Upper Goulburn Valley and only minor to moderate flooding in Seymour and Shepparton,” Mr Kennedy said.
“The catastrophic flooding in October 2022 would have been avoided.”
For more than a year local farmers and business owners have been urging GMW to change its policy.
But GMW argues that holding Lake Eildon at 88 per cent would mean the storage would lose 400GL of harvesting capacity.
They say in the event of a drought this would reduce water availability and significantly increase the market price of water.
At a meeting last month, farmers met with senior management and demanded that GMW start releasing 9,000 megalitres a day from the lake.
At that time just 1,000ML was being released each day.
A meeting with the water authority this week failed to reach a compromise.
“Our only hope is to pray to God for no more rain,” Mr Kennedy said.
Member for Eildon, Cindy McLeish, said while outflows had now increased to 12,000 megalitres a day, it was too little too late because inflows were now at 14,000 mega litres meaning the lake is still filling.
“Locals are anxious about the very real possibility of another flood when they are still trying to recover from the devastation of the October event,” she said.
“Frustration levels are high, and they get more information about what is going on from a Facebook site, than they do from the Andrews Government.”
GMW Managing Director Charmaine Quick said the Bureau of Meteorology’s three-month climate outlook showed below median rainfall was likely to very likely.
“The framework under the Victorian Water Act … requires GMW to set target filling points so that Lake Eildon will reach full capacity in 95 years out of 100,” she said.
“These filling targets seek to protect the reliability of water entitlements, while offering some flood mitigation.
“GMW shifted from making releases to purely supply demands to making additional releases to manage the volume of water held in Lake Eildon in line with the target filling points in April 2023 and have continued to do so through to present day.
“Numerous factors determine the volume released from Lake Eildon, including storage levels, rainfall forecasts, inflows and the potential impacts on communities downstream.”
Water Minister Harriet Shing told parliament this week that controlled releases were part of work being done to minimise the impact of recent rains.
“We know, and so many people around rural and regional Victoria know, particularly after the flooding that occurred last October, that heavy rains are an enormously distressing event, particularly for people who live downstream and for people who lost livestock, crops, property and buildings,” she said.
“But I also want to note that given climatic volatility and a 70 per cent chance of an El Niño event – again this is modelling done by the Bureau of Meteorology – we do have a number of areas where we need to be aware of risk not just in terms of too much water but also in relation to not enough.”
Frustrated farmers and landholders consider class action
Thornton resident and recent flood victim Ed Meggitt, who owns Goulburn River trout, said the community’s pleas for action had “fallen on deaf ears’’.
Mr Meggitt, on behalf of a group of farmers and landholders in the upper-mid Goulburn Catchment, wrote to Water Minister Harriet Shing in April pleading that she direct Goulburn Murray Water to keep Lake Eildon below 95 per cent capacity for the remainder of the year.
When that letter was sent earlier this year, Lake Eildon was at 94 per cent capacity. Its water levels are currently at 97.1 per cent, with the lake continuing to rise.
Each day about 12500ML of water flows into the lake each day, but the water authority is only releasing 12,000ML each day.
Despite that, the concerned locals – who are still rebuilding after last year’s deadly floods – say they are yet to receive a response from Ms Shing’s office.
Mr Meggitt told the Herald Sun that frustrated locals are now considering a class action against Goulburn Murray Water, warning the community is at severe risk of another catastrophic flood event.
“At this point, it really is a come to Jesus moment and we’re all just praying that it doesn’t rain,” he said.
“Goulburn Murray Water has outsourced its managerial responsibilities to God.
“If we get a big event, we’re stuffed again.”
Mr Meggitt, who lives 20km below the Eildon Dam wall, said Goulburn Murray Water’s failure to remove more water was “dangerous, incompetent and negligent”.
“The ideal solution would have been to listen to our solutions back in March, April where we said you’ve got to get some water out of this lake,” he said.
“We haven’t all just been beating this drum for the last five minutes, we’ve been making submissions to parliamentary inquiries, we’ve asked the Minister to intervene but they have all ignored that.”
Authorities ‘very mean spirited’ towards farmers
Whanregarwen farmer Larry Fallon spent more than $100,000 repairing his farm after last year’s floods.
Despite that, parts of his property remain flooded and the prospect of even more rain over the coming weeks is “really concerning”.
“We made it clear to the authorities that the way the river was filling, we’re going to get flooded. There was no response,” Mr Fallon said.
“We’ve expressed it to them time and time again, and yet nothing.
“I think they’re just being bloody minded and very mean spirited towards farmers.”
Mr Fallon lost nearly half of his farm in last year’s flood emergency.
He has warned authorities that “if it comes again, I’d lose the same”.
“We just can’t get them across the line and get them to understand that our concern is they’re filling the lake too early,” he said.
“You can fill it later in the year and still accomplish a fairly full lake.
“It seems to me they’ve got this set modelling that they just will not change.
“I’m just asking them to have a good look at what we’re trying to do.
“We’re not asking them to stop storing water, we’re asking them to bring it back to 90 per cent until we sort this out.”
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