The Murchison Community Centre was buzzing with discussion on Tuesday evening, July 12, as concerned community members from Murchison and Toolamba met with representatives from Greater Shepparton City Council, water authorities and emergency services at an information session focused on flood recovery and outlook.
Murchison was one of the first communities in Greater Shepparton to be hit by last year’s devastating October floods.
The session included panellists from Goulburn-Murray Water, Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority, Victoria SES and council.
Council chief executive Peter Harriott was also in attendance (in an observational capacity, not as a panellist) before stepping up to respond directly to community members’ concerns during the Q and A section of the night.
G-MW manager of river operations Andrew Shields gave an update on the current levels of water storages and dams.
He informed the group that the water levels were quite high, with Lake Eildon at 98 per cent capacity, up four percentage points since the heavy rain of about a month ago.
Mr Shields emphasised that G-MW was keeping water storage space in Waranga Basin available should it need it, storage it did not have access to in last year’s floods.
Goulburn Broken CMA statutory planning and floodplain manager Guy Tierney took attendees through a brief weather forecast.
He said the region was coming into drier conditions, but both Mr Tierney and Mr Shields said a flood could happen at any time, and that they would only know about three or four days beforehand.
Mr Shields and Mr Tierney answered some of the community’s questions about the origins of the floods last year, and Mr Shields explained that because the information was only available three or four days before a potential disaster, extreme measures to prepare could have other detrimental effects.
He said releasing too much water could leave the region unprepared in the case of a future drought, all in preparation for a flood that might not happen.
Mr Harriott announced that council would be conducting a comprehensive survey of all council-owned town levees, providing reassurance to the community that Murchison would be included in the assessment.
When community members inquired about the possibility of building more levees, Mr Harriott explained the complex dynamics involved and that constructing levees to assist one individual could potentially harm another.
He highlighted that levees had not been primarily used for flood mitigation since the turn of the century.
Mr Harriott said council would be doing everything it could to tap into local knowledge of the area and better prepare Murchison, Toolamba and the surrounding areas for the future.
SES representatives gave residents tips to be better prepared in the future, and council representatives encouraged community members to get involved in a flood preparation committee.