I guess many of us sung this ditty when we were kids but we who live in the "Dry Tropics" are getting sick of it!
Since January 27, Townsville has had its annual rainfall of 1200mm in two weeks & I suppose we have to count our blessings as we ourselves were not flooded unlike others in older, flatter suburbs (some of which suffer on the high tides a couple of times a year by having sea water in their back yards). As it is the water table at our place is about 50mm above the ground. It will be another week before I can put to mower on the lawns.
And that's not including the other locations nearby (Giru - the Haughton River, Ayr/Home Hill, the Burdekin River, Plantation Creek & Ingham - the Herbert River, Townsville - the Ross River) who have been suffering even more with constant rain, flooding, unusual reptiles being seen in the towns, creeks. One Townsville Hospital patient from Ingham had to walk, crawl over the railway bridge across Ollera Creek a couple of days ago, sharing the experience with several venomous snakes that were seeking dry ground.
But hopefully as the BOM has promised, we might see the sun on Thursday for a bit longer than the couple of hours during two recent days. They were right in that the monsoon would deliver a lot of rain on us, so hopefully they might be right about the rain heading north.
2025 is becoming similar to 2009 when the north was wet, the south was hot & on fire! In the meantime it would be nice to see the end of this almost constant rain!
Gundog said
07:31 PM Feb 11, 2025
We are in the Whitsundays and we are into the 3rg week of daily rain of occasional showere and thunderstorms to to continueous rain over 8-10 hours.
The ground is very wet slushy in places.
Sarco Harris said
08:18 PM Feb 11, 2025
Here in Central Vic, we have had 10.9mm (6/1/25) since 8/12/24.
Send some (or even a lot) of that rain down here please!
Dick0 said
10:49 AM Feb 12, 2025
Dam water during monsoons and pump it into the Murray Darling Basin.
rmoor said
04:40 PM Feb 12, 2025
Funny you would say that, was thinking exactly the same thing.
The Bradfield Plan.
Should have been done years ago.
It is quite feasible but successive govts too stupid to implement the plan.
It may have gone a long way to saving Northern Communities and also save the Darling/Murray system.
I saw a brilliant piping plan a few years ago at a water summit at Western Plains Zoo.
A prominent Federal politician walked up, stood beside me and laughed at the engineers plan.
He called it a "Pipe Dream".
When you look at the local McPhillamy's mine decision recently by a different goose, one does not need to be surprised why these great plans gather dust.
Warren-Pat_01 said
06:45 PM Feb 12, 2025
The problem with your idea DIck0, is that no-one wants to pay for it & we have too many short-sighted politicians.
We have two issues up here - the first is the Ross Dam (Townsville's water supply). The previous state government was offered Federal money but there were dramas over it to connect the dam to the Burdekin River using larger pipes than what are in existence (old & small) & solar to power the pumps. So the State govt told the Federal member here to go jump! And you've probably guessed - after three years, it's still not connected!
The other is building the Burdekin Falls Dam (south of Mingela) to its original planned height (an extra 14.5m high). The land that was expected to be covered was purchased years ago but again the same Govt as mentioned above knew more than the dam's design engineers & said "No, we only need an extra 2m higher & it's cheaper! In all of the recent rain events, that spillway is generally 5-6m under the flood water. Engineers said it can only be lifted once & raising it 2m is a waste of resources. And now we have a new state govt.
The BFD was built to support Townsville in droughts, to feed the Bowen vegetable farms & it supplies the coal mining areas out the back of Mackay. It is 4.5 times the capacity of Sydney Harbour. I wish you luck!
Sarco Harris said
10:18 PM Feb 12, 2025
There is another issue with the plan.
The environmental issues of transferring water from the north to the south. While it is probably true to some extent that the colder water temperatures during winter in the southern states would perhaps kill off many of the parasites etc. that may not be the case.
It would end up like the carp virus, everbody says that it is a good idea and would be very effective, but nobody can 100% guarantee that there would be no knockon environmental effects, so it simply doesn't happen anyway.
Kebbin said
10:19 AM Feb 13, 2025
You have to feel for the people of Ingham, they have had 1940mm this month and 500mm of that fell in one day!
DMaxer said
10:27 AM Feb 13, 2025
The Bradfield Plan was first discussed in 1938 and over the years it has been wheeled out for further discussions. The CSRIO has conducted numerous studies as haves various independent boards, even Professor Ross Garnaut has undertaken its research and all have agreed it is not feasible. Inter alia, it found that the supply of water would not be consistent and by transporting the water the area from which it was taken would be disadvantaged. They also found the cost to benefit ratio did not support the scheme.
This has been looked into by various governments of both sides and unfortunately it is not feasible.
Warren-Pat_01 said
05:47 PM Feb 14, 2025
And another problem that both Sarco Harris & DMaxer have touched on is the loss of specific wild life that is adapted to living in both dry & wet areas. Would both lots survive the Bradfield Scheme? I doubt it.
After many decades & the generation of lots of power via the Snowy Mountains Scheme, there are thoughts now of how the previous wild Snowy River shouldn't have been tamed. I guess having two states involved further complicates the issue. How would the Bradfield Scheme work?
Initially only Qld along with the Federal Govt would need to be involved as the M-D rivers commence in SW Qld but then both NSW & Victoria are there to bicker about pros & cons, & "who is holding us to ransom, etc."
And as I mentioned above, Qld didn't like paying for water saving, power generation under the previous administration, how the new one will go is anyone's guess. They quite wisely knocked the proposed Eungella dam on the head.
I guess many of us sung this ditty when we were kids but we who live in the "Dry Tropics" are getting sick of it!
Since January 27, Townsville has had its annual rainfall of 1200mm in two weeks & I suppose we have to count our blessings as we ourselves were not flooded unlike others in older, flatter suburbs (some of which suffer on the high tides a couple of times a year by having sea water in their back yards). As it is the water table at our place is about 50mm above the ground. It will be another week before I can put to mower on the lawns.
And that's not including the other locations nearby (Giru - the Haughton River, Ayr/Home Hill, the Burdekin River, Plantation Creek & Ingham - the Herbert River, Townsville - the Ross River) who have been suffering even more with constant rain, flooding, unusual reptiles being seen in the towns, creeks. One Townsville Hospital patient from Ingham had to walk, crawl over the railway bridge across Ollera Creek a couple of days ago, sharing the experience with several venomous snakes that were seeking dry ground.
But hopefully as the BOM has promised, we might see the sun on Thursday for a bit longer than the couple of hours during two recent days. They were right in that the monsoon would deliver a lot of rain on us, so hopefully they might be right about the rain heading north.
2025 is becoming similar to 2009 when the north was wet, the south was hot & on fire! In the meantime it would be nice to see the end of this almost constant rain!
We are in the Whitsundays and we are into the 3rg week of daily rain of occasional showere and thunderstorms to to continueous rain over 8-10 hours.
The ground is very wet slushy in places.
Send some (or even a lot) of that rain down here please!
Dam water during monsoons and pump it into the Murray Darling Basin.
The Bradfield Plan.
Should have been done years ago.
It is quite feasible but successive govts too stupid to implement the plan.
It may have gone a long way to saving Northern Communities and also save the Darling/Murray system.
I saw a brilliant piping plan a few years ago at a water summit at Western Plains Zoo.
A prominent Federal politician walked up, stood beside me and laughed at the engineers plan.
He called it a "Pipe Dream".
When you look at the local McPhillamy's mine decision recently by a different goose, one does not need to be surprised why these great plans gather dust.
We have two issues up here - the first is the Ross Dam (Townsville's water supply). The previous state government was offered Federal money but there were dramas over it to connect the dam to the Burdekin River using larger pipes than what are in existence (old & small) & solar to power the pumps. So the State govt told the Federal member here to go jump! And you've probably guessed - after three years, it's still not connected!
The other is building the Burdekin Falls Dam (south of Mingela) to its original planned height (an extra 14.5m high). The land that was expected to be covered was purchased years ago but again the same Govt as mentioned above knew more than the dam's design engineers & said "No, we only need an extra 2m higher & it's cheaper! In all of the recent rain events, that spillway is generally 5-6m under the flood water. Engineers said it can only be lifted once & raising it 2m is a waste of resources. And now we have a new state govt.
The BFD was built to support Townsville in droughts, to feed the Bowen vegetable farms & it supplies the coal mining areas out the back of Mackay. It is 4.5 times the capacity of Sydney Harbour. I wish you luck!
The environmental issues of transferring water from the north to the south. While it is probably true to some extent that the colder water temperatures during winter in the southern states would perhaps kill off many of the parasites etc. that may not be the case.
It would end up like the carp virus, everbody says that it is a good idea and would be very effective, but nobody can 100% guarantee that there would be no knockon environmental effects, so it simply doesn't happen anyway.
The Bradfield Plan was first discussed in 1938 and over the years it has been wheeled out for further discussions. The CSRIO has conducted numerous studies as haves various independent boards, even Professor Ross Garnaut has undertaken its research and all have agreed it is not feasible. Inter alia, it found that the supply of water would not be consistent and by transporting the water the area from which it was taken would be disadvantaged. They also found the cost to benefit ratio did not support the scheme.
This has been looked into by various governments of both sides and unfortunately it is not feasible.
After many decades & the generation of lots of power via the Snowy Mountains Scheme, there are thoughts now of how the previous wild Snowy River shouldn't have been tamed. I guess having two states involved further complicates the issue. How would the Bradfield Scheme work?
Initially only Qld along with the Federal Govt would need to be involved as the M-D rivers commence in SW Qld but then both NSW & Victoria are there to bicker about pros & cons, & "who is holding us to ransom, etc."
And as I mentioned above, Qld didn't like paying for water saving, power generation under the previous administration, how the new one will go is anyone's guess. They quite wisely knocked the proposed Eungella dam on the head.