This week, it was all about flood mitigation in Echuca and Moama as locals came together to participate in the Flood Study Risk Management Plan project.
As part of the community consultation section, councils on both sides of the river, Campaspe and Murray River, held five joint sessions where people could give observations on past events and what could be done to reduce exposure to, and impacts of, future floods.
One of the main people running the study, John McCartney, said he was pleased with how much feedback they received.
“There has been exceptionally good attendance,” he said.
“It was interesting to hear what the locals thought about how they approached all the problems, and we got some very sensible suggestions there.
“We broke the five sessions up by area to have targeted conversations, which worked really well.”
Some of the suggestions given were about how to create temporary or permanent levies, where these might be best located, and what other options could be used.
“We ran through what was done during that last 2022 (flood) event and what went well so that perhaps you could investigate having sort of a permanent measure there in the future,” Mr McCartney said.
“People raised hybrid solutions where maybe you could build up some parts of a levy, and then you could put temporary ones on top of it.”
Ben Tate from Water Technology, who was also working on the study, said communication among community members was an important part of the discussion.
“There was a suggestion around having more community input during the response. So having community wardens who can help communicate with other community members in their area,” he said.
“This is common across Victoria and can bring more local knowledge to the emergency responders to help them.”
Campaspe Shire Mayor Rob Amos said people took the opportunity to have a say and ran with it.
“Around 30 people attended, and the response has been actually really valuable,” he said.
“Some really interesting suggestions came through, like maybe looking at the drains and working out which drains need upgrading or put into different areas. Not all of them were just about building things. So, for example, there was better co-ordination of volunteers.”
He said local voices sharing their opinions proved once again to be crucial.
“It was really, really pleasing that the community came along. This is why we wanted to do the community consultation and will continue to do community consultation,” Cr Amos said.
“They come up with ideas that we won’t think of and that our research teams won’t think of. And that’s the really important part of this: it needs to be community-run.”
Towards the end of the year, the recommendations should be released, before the funding application process will commence.
“We then need to go and find funding, primarily from the Federal Government, but the state governments as well. We need to tell them we’ve got data-driven community studies, and we need funding to put some of these measures in place to better protect our communities into the future,” Cr Amos said.