Wivenhoe Dam case built on 'failures' in flood

AUSTRALIA'S biggest class action could be launched against the Queensland government on the basis of new flood modelling.

Flood

AUSTRALIA'S biggest class action could be launched against the Queensland government on the basis of new flood modelling that claims thousands of homes and businesses were needlessly inundated during the 2011 flood crisis because of the "negligence" and "incompetence" of Wivenhoe Dam's operators.

After a 12-month, $1 million investigation, law firm Maurice Blackburn - backed by a $10m fighting fund from litigation financier IMF Australia - said yesterday its commissioned research would underpin the class action against the state of Queensland.

Maurice Blackburn principal Damian Scattini claimed the hydrodynamic modelling from US experts showed the government-owned dam operator SEQWater breached its duty of care and caused entire suburbs, the Ipswich CBD and Brisbane city's Eagle St pier to be unnecessarily flooded.

"There were 29,000 homes and businesses flooded and there's a very large number that didn't need to be," he said.

SEQWater chief executive Terri Benson hit back yesterday, insisting the organisation remained confident Wivenhoe Dam was "managed and performed as it was designed".

"(It) was the largest flood in southeast Queensland for more than 100 years; and was the result of an extreme rainfall event both above and below Wivenhoe Dam," she said.

In March, the year-long Floods Commission of Inquiry found the dam's operators breached its manual, failing to adopt the correct strategy to protect Brisbane from inundation for about three days from January 8, 2011.

In the wake of the royal commission-style probe, three of Wivenhoe's four flood engineers were referred to the state's Crime and Misconduct Commission. The CMC found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing or official misconduct, despite Floods Commissioner Cate Holmes ruling the engineers' report of the flood event was misleading and false. The engineers have always maintained they did nothing wrong.

More than 4000 flood victims have registered their interest with IMF and Maurice Blackburn; now the firms must find enough potential litigants with viable claims to make running the expensive case worthwhile.

Australia's biggest class action to date has been the $200 million settlement to shareholders of the property company Centro, but IMF's John Walker said the flood action could eclipse that at more than $500m.

While declining to name the US hydrologists commissioned to produce the modelling, Mr Scattini said the experts argued the operators were negligent partly because they had disregarded rainfall forecasts.

"(The dam operators) held too much water in the reservoir for too long and then when they realised what they'd done they panicked and released too much at once," Mr Scattini claimed. "Therefore, we had a much larger peak than there needed to be, had the dam been operated to the standard."

Premier Campbell Newman would not be drawn on the development yesterday, saying it was a matter for Maurice Blackburn. "They are a law firm, they were always going to launch a case. They're entitled to do that on behalf of their clients," he said.

IMF and Maurice Blackburn yesterday released maps they said showed large swaths of Brisbane and Ipswich - including the suburbs of Chelmer and Rosalie and parts of West End, New Farm and Newstead - should not have been flooded at all.

In Chelmer, resident Tegwen Howell said she had been to a couple of the law firm's public meetings and was still deciding whether to join the class action.

Ms Howell, whose family home had to be demolished after being inundated with floodwater and silt, said the modelling came as no surprise. "(It should) have been handled differently. Given everyone knew it was going to be a wet summer, to start at the (dam) capacity it was at had to be a recipe for disaster."