Flood residents urge Victorian government to reduce ‘imminent’ risk, lower water levels

Ahead of public hearings into the catastrophic Victorian floods last year, Rochester residents are pleading for water from an overfull lake to be released.

Saturday 15th Rochester township floods from the Campaspe River as it rises through the streets. Picture: Jason Edwards

Locals from Rochester, a regional Victorian town smashed by catastrophic floods nearly a year ago, will continue to push the state’s water minister to lower their overfull lake after pleas to release water from Eppalock were repeatedly denied by the state government.

It comes ahead of the first of two public hearings on Wednesday and Thursday to be held as part of a parliamentary inquiry into the 2022 flooding disaster that is estimated to have hit 90 per cent of homes in Rochester, about 200km north of Melbourne.

Rochester flood mitigation committee chair Leigh Wilson said Lake Eppalock is the “core focus” of the community, along with raising other mitigation strategies, insurance and rebuilding issues and the immediate emergency response.

“The problem for our community is mitigation isn’t a simple thing. We just can't build a levee and it’s all fixed, there’s quite a few things that need to take place. There are quite a few things that need to take place, and lake Eppalock is a core part of the solution,” he said.

Aerial photos of the Victorian town of Rochester, completely underwater in the Victorian October floods. Taken on October 15, 2022. Picture: Nearmap

The Australian was given a recording of After a meeting was held between Victorian state water minister Harriet Shing and members of the Rochester Flood Mitigation committee on July 19 this year, in which Ms Shing can be heard shutting down requests to release water from Lake Eppalock which is currently at 100.43 per cent capacity, Mr Wilson said the community was “disappointed”.

“Our argument is we have an imminent risk that if there is a major rain event, our community will flood,” he said.

“The sheer risk of flooding again is causing a lot of emotional duress, a lot of stress to a lot of residents. And it undermines the confidence around rebuilding and the investment and staying here.”

In a recording of the meeting, Ms Shing can be heard telling the committee the forecast of a dry El Nino weather pattern could lead to a shortage of water supply.

“We are also seeing really patchy behaviour in rainfall which means that we don’t have the certainty around modelling anymore that we thought we did because climate change is a factor,” she said.

One committee member asked Ms Shing during the meeting if lowering water levels in lake eppalock to 90 per cent was “out of the question”.

In response, Ms Shing said she did not think “90 per cent is realistic”.

A Victorian government spokesperson said they “understand the ongoing distress and desire for certainty as about water levels at Lake Eppalock”.

“That’s why it is so important to be upfront when discussing the storage level and that the expert advice was not to reduce the level of Lake Eppalock to 90 per cent at this time,” they said.

“The Minister for Water has asked the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action to undertake a technical assessment of the operating arrangements and infrastructure at Lake Eppalock to determine if changing the operating rules or infrastructure could improve protection for downstream communities from future flooding.

“The assessment is underway, and the final report will be released in November this year.”