The CSIRO report commissioned by the former Scott Morrison Coalition Government to assess new dams as flood mitigation for the Richmond River Catchment has been released today and confirmed that only possible minor flood reductions are possible if all ten proposed new dams are built.
The report shows that under the same conditions as the 2022 flood, the Lismore flood levee would still be over-topped even with all mitigation measures that are proposed, and that floods would last for days or weeks longer as water is slowly released.
Greens MP, Lismore local, and spokesperson for the North Coast Sue Higginson said, “This report confirms what flood experts and the community have been saying all along, billions of dollars in new dams for the Richmond River will not prevent severe flooding and could make floods far more dangerous and long lasting,”
“This project was commissioned and tasked with recommending hard-infrastructure like dams as flood mitigation – that’s why this report is only about pouring concrete in the upper catchment. Dams only offer false hope of flood mitigation, our community needs solutions and not just disinformation that will cause more harm,”
“Now that the science is in this report, it’s time for Kevin Hogan and the Nationals to admit that floods will continue to hit the communities of the Richmond River and that their favourite solution of more dams will make the problem worse,”
“There is incredible work happening throughout Australia and around the world that shows planned retreat and nature based solutions are the best, cheapest, and longest lasting mitigation measures for floods. This is the tough conversation that our Richmond River communities need to be having,”
“Replanting the forests of the upper catchment, revegetating and repairing the banks of our streams and rivers – these measures will catch more water and slow it down before it joins the major flood happening on the plains. We get a healthier river and more flood resilience – it’s a win-win,”
“Our community needs more investment in genuine climate resilience, and we have the opportunity to be a world leader by re-imagining our CBD as the wetland cultural market hub it can be – while cleaning up the river at the same time. We should be the region who fixed one of the most broken dirty damaged rivers in the country and made it a swimmable, drinkable, fishable world heritage rainforest-to-coastal river once again,”
“The Lismore CBD will still flood even if all ten new dams are built. Those dams will flood vast areas of the environment, destroy cultural heritage, and will create instability in new areas – and the floods will last longer and do more damage. It’s time to ask ‘how many hundreds of millions of dollars need to be wasted before Lismore adapts to living on a floodplain?’,”
“Now that the proposed dam locations are in this report, I expect the communities directly impacted will be pretty concerned. The Government will do a business case for these projects and realise the cost-benefit analysis doesn’t stack up. The community must be actively and transparently included in consideration of other options,” Ms Higginson.
