Posts Tagged ‘ floods ’

Face it, Melbourne, you need another dam


Brisbane’s beautiful Wivenhoe Dam

Was taking a look at Andrew Bolt’s latest round-up of Australia’s part-time, 180K/year climate commissar, paleontologist Tim Flannery.

You know, how his fear-mongering predictions about permanent drought and rains that would never fill our dams and rivers were so utterly wrong.

Anyway, what really cought my eye was the table Bolta put up a little ways down in that post.

I’m from Brisbane originally, and he’s from Melbourne, so I took a quick look at the two.

Brisbane has water storage capacity of about 2.2 million megalitres.

Melbourne has a capacity of only about 1.8 million megalitres.

Brisbane’s dams are about 90% full.

Melbourne’s dams are only at around 80% (and that’s being generous).

And yet, flick over to Wikipedia, and Melborne has a population of about 4.2 million.

Brisbane? Only 2.2 million.

Start doing some back of the envelope math, and it’s beyond obvious that Melbourne has far less water per person than Brisbane.

With dams at 100% capacity, Brisbane has enough for about 1 megalitre per person.

Melbourne at full capacity can can barely manage about 40% per person compared to what Brisbane gets.

Look at actual current capacity, and the numbers get even worse.

Currently, Brisbane can manage about 900 kilolitres per person.

Melbourne? A mere 330 kilolitres per person – barely over a third.

Now back when it was a bit dry, even Brisbane had to do it tough. Sure, no ridiculous buckets in the shower, but the only way Mum could keep her modest garden well watered, was thanks to Dad installing two water tanks in the back yard. Otherwise, Mum might as well have gotten some sand and desert rocks.

And folks in Bris Vegas still can’t use water like it’s endless. But, crikey, you guys in Melbourne currently have only around a third of the water per person as they do in Brisbane.

That’s nuts.

Long story short, it’s time to put the propaganda aside, and build another bloody dam, Melbourne.

It won’t be the end of nature. Heck, the habitat around Brisbane’s Wivenhoe dam is gorgeous. Nature is resilient. Nature adapts. Nature tends to like water.

How high can one hope, though? The Victorian premier seems about as non envirotard liberal as Mitt Romney smoking a joint at a John Lennon tribute concert.

Related: Yes, whole swathes of people CAN be convinced with dud “science”.

2013
01/25
CATEGORY
AGW
Australia
4 comments

Flood evacuations lead to new spider overlords


OK. So the latest reports have the residents of Wagga Wagga returning home, but it’s not just flood damage they’ll have to contend with.

Local spiders escaping from the rising waters have made higher land their new domain. And by spiders, we’re talking lots of spiders… with massive spider webs!

Woof!



(Image: Daniel Munoz/Reuters)

2012
03/07
CATEGORY
Animals
Australia
3 comments

Unprecedented?


Andrew Bolt put up a video of Julia Gillard talking about the floods. He’s been nailing it, btw. We had the money to cover them, but Labor flushed it away over the past few years. It could be paid for easily if Labor cut back a bit on their extravagant spending. And wrapping a levy that only really slugs the rich around a banner of patriotism is deceitful at best.

Anyway, the bit in the video which is really unnerving is that Julia keeps describing the floods as “unprecedented”. Again and again, she drones on about them being “unprecedented”.

Bollocks. Even the quickest of wiki searches tells us flooding is Australia is unfortunately, very normal.

And Julia, if that slush fund isn’t there to help with these floods, why wasn’t there one that would have?

2011
01/28
CATEGORY
Australia
Politics
24 comments

Coulda, shoulda, but weren’t


The Brisbane floods could have been prevented???

LEAKED email communications from a Wivenhoe Dam engineering officer underline concerns that the Brisbane River flood was mostly caused by massive releases from the dam after it had held on to water too long over a crucial 72 hours before the severe rainfall that hit the region last week.

The emails, which become increasingly urgent in tone as the situation became critical as the dam’s levels rise rapidly, were provided to The Australian by a source who said the stream of data had convinced him the river flood of Brisbane could have been largely avoided if the dam’s operators had taken action much earlier.

Damn. But hey, why not slug us with another tax? Government’s fault, but we pay the price? Well, we used to have a surplus…

JULIA Gillard has confirmed the government is considering imposing a levy on taxpayers to help cover the costs of the Queensland floods.

And Bisbane’s previous Labor council, it could be argued, stuffed up and covered up where home’s could be built.

AS thousands of Brisbane residents remain confused and angry that their houses were flooded by an event with a lower peak in the Brisbane River than the last major flood in 1974, official council reports, including one covered up from 1999 to 2003, help to shed light on the reasons why.

Thanks to Hedley Thomas and our favourite flying Dutchman, Andrew Bolt. Have a listen to his MTR podcast today… really gets into the guts of it (link available when available). Nice one on highlighting the money spent on the BER, NBN, and desal plants that just maaaaaybe could be better spent.

BTW, will Bob Brown retract his ridiculous mining companies position? A man-made disaster perhaps, Bob, but you’re blaming the wrong men and women.

UPDATE

Insurance nightmare.

UPDATE II

Indeed, rather than blame it on global warming nonsense, why didn’t we learn from history?

Ian Cordery:

We need action to ensure flood history is positively, sympathetically and continually brought to the attention of all who reside, work in, have dealings with or invest in Brisbane. Commercial interests will protest that this will be detrimental to real estate values and investment and as in the past they will attempt to undermine any plans for ongoing, widespread, meaningful flood education. The population, particularly our elected representatives, must take account of these opinions in their deliberations but stand firm so that our past ignorance of history does not ensure repetition of the current catastrophe.

UPDATE III

By the book? At least there’ll be an inquiry. Hope it’s not another cover-up, though…

The flood manual for Brisbane’s Wivenhoe and Somerset dams has been publicly released, as theories fly about the role of dam releases in last week’s floods.

SEQ Water Grid, which operates southeast Queensland’s water infrastructure, has previously refused to release the manual.

Chief executive Barry Dennien has said the dam was run according to the book and has declined to answer questions ahead of a commission of inquiry into the flood crisis, announced this week.

But at least one engineer says the flooding could have been avoided if larger volumes had been released in the days leading up to the crisis.

2011
01/21
CATEGORY
Australia
5 comments

Stay safe, Victoria


First Queensland and now, of course, Victoria.

Bush fires last year, floods this year.

You have to wonder, however, what if the likes of Bob Brown weren’t listened to and proper back burning had occurred last year?

What if Victoria’s Mitchel and Thompson rivers had dams?

What if Bob Brown had been a voice 35-odd years ago and Wivenhoe Dam – primarily built for flood mitigation – had never been built?

These are debates that need to be had. In the meantime, stay safe and dry, guys.

BTW, any Victorian readers care to share their latest?

2011
01/19
CATEGORY
Animals
Leave a comment

Tasmania, do the rest of us a favour


… and boot Bob Brown out of office.

Blaming coal companies for our floods? What an opportunistic, narcissistic, hypocritical nutbag.

Who else is fed up with man-made climate change charlatans? They seriously need to shut the hell up.

Bolta’s back on MTR radio by the way, and he absolutely rips into Leftists such as Simon Jenkins and that ridiculous Bob Brown. He and particularly one of his moderators might piss this blogger off no end sometimes, but you can’t not appreciate what the bloke says.

UPDATE

Thanks to reader Mags, check out Cory Bernadi’s take on Bob Brown. It’s a must read. If you weren’t quite sure just how big of a scumbag hypocrite Brown is, you will be after clicking.

2011
01/17
CATEGORY
Australia
5 comments

It takes more than a flood to stop the beer in QLD


Unlike everyone else, at least the publicans foresaw what was going on.

Townsville branch spokesmen from beer wholesalers Australian Liquor Marketers and Hotel Liquor Wholesalers both said they had enough in reserve to cope with the present situation.

“Do we have enough FOOD, son?!?”

“P-P-P-Plenty!”

UPDATE

In reality, actually, like Mum said, there isn’t all that much food. Kae, in the trenches, has taken a few piccies for us. If you haven’t already, take a squiz at her last few posts. There’s some good on-the-ground coverage there that you won’t find anywhere else.

UPDATE II

A mate who used to work over here, too, has a pretty decent collation of Brissie flood info, too.

UPDATE III

Reader Mags, another Bris Vegan, has a neat little round-up, also.

UPDATE IV

The flooding was CNN’s lead story. Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, came across really well. Very genuine. So did foreign minister, Kevin Rudd. PM Gillard came across as a complete phoney.

Of note, Brazil and Sri Lanka are flooded, too. No prizes for guessing who of the three will recover best and fastest.

2011
01/12
CATEGORY
Australia
3 comments

Queensland/Brisbane floods


Mags has the details.

More from another Queenslander, Iain Hall.

Long showers, guys. Long showers. Save the planet!

2011
01/10
CATEGORY
Australia
14 comments

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