Wagga mayor Greg Conkey has welcomed Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s calls for a “long overdue debate” on flood mitigation.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
On Monday, Mr Shorten said spending money on flood mitigation “literally pays for itself after a storm event”.
“I'm a fan of mitigation because I think it actually saves damage, it can potentially save lives, and it certainly saves (the) taxpayer cost and clean-up,” he said.
Councillor Conkey said if Mr Shorten could help send flood mitigation funding to Wagga he would welcome it.
“You could never say no to that, it would overcome a lot of angst,” Councillor Conkey said.
“Flood mitigation is something we’re already working towards, a floodplain management review is taking place at the moment and community consultation should take place this month.”
Labor councillor Dan Hayes said Wagga had to spend years fighting for an upgraded levee that “every man and his dog knew was necessary”.
“We’ve seen how hard we’ve had to fight for the levee bank funding,” he said.
“It took a major flood and then another four years to happen.”
Murrumbidgee Region SES incident controller Graeme Craig said there was a “very low likelihood” anyone would need to be evacuated from the flood-prone suburb of North Wagga.
“I want to reassure the people of North Wagga we don’t expect the river to increase significantly and certainly not to a level that will require action,” Mr Craig said.
“Evacuations are not in the scope at the moment, once this little bit of rain is gone we’re not expecting much for four or five days.”
Mr Craig said while small amounts of rain could make a difference in creeks and small bodies of water, the amount required to make a difference in the Murrumbidgee River would be “very significant”.
“it’s not a simple, linear equation,” he said.
A Bureau of Meteorology hydrologist said there was “much more complexity” in catchment and river response.
“We take into account all these complex mechanisms when running our models or using other forecasting technics,” she said.
“We are monitoring and updating regularly our prediction for the river response at Wagga and will keep warning the public and emergency services through the issue of flood warnings.”