An appeal for representatives from North Wagga to be included in the next step of a peer review of North Wagga's flood protection failed after dramatic scenes at Monday evening's General Council Meeting.
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At the meeting, council sought to resolve a roadblock in the long-awaited independent peer review of the 2018 Floodplain Risk Management Plan (FRMP).
The review was requested by North Wagga residents who disputed the 2018 report's proposal of a one-in-twenty year levee for the village and called for greater flood protection in the floodplain area.
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The review failed to provide an answer on the higher levee because of a dispute between FRMP author WMAwater and reviewers BMT over methodology and alleged errors in the initial plan.
In a report, council staff recommended the two companies meet to resolve the dispute so BMT can answer the levee question, but representatives from North Wagga demanded to be included in the discussions.
Former resident Peter Morris addressed the meeting and called for the Floodplain Risk Management Advisory Committee and representatives of North Wagga to be present for the discussions.
"If this four way group can agree, I request that the council allow recommendations from [the] meeting to be presented directly to a following ordinary council meeting rather than wait for another Floodplain Committee meeting which only meets every two months," he said. "... This will hopefully reduce further costly delay on a firm recommendation on some flood amelioration for North Wagga."
The North Wagga Residents Association's Fiona Ziff also spoke at the meeting, demanding more transparency and consultation in all matters relating to the flood plan.
"Moving forward residents will not accept anything less than full, open and very transparent collaboration between stakeholders," she said.
Ultimately, councillors voted unanimously for the two companies to be engaged in a discussion without other groups present.
Councillor Vanessa Keenan said while she supported greater community consultation overall, submissions from the North Wagga community have already been provided to BMT. She argued the peer review would be hindered by extra voices.
"We need BMT and WMA to sit down and talk about the methodologies of how they approach things, that [meeting] will not benefit from having more cooks in the kitchen," Cr Keenan said.
Councillor Rod Kendall said the peer review needs to be resolved as soon as possible so that work on improved flood protection in North Wagga, which has been put on hold while the review is undertaken, can begin.
Currently, North Wagga only has a one-in-eight year flood protection levee in place.
"We're doing this study because that was what was requested by the North Wagga residents," Cr Kendall said. "The result of that is there is no progress currently happening on any design of the North Wagga levee, whether that be an improvement to one- in-twenty or an improvement to any other amount..."
Councillor Kendall's statement was interrupted by Ms Ziff who spoke out from the public gallery twice, but was reprimanded by Mayor Conkey.
Under standard council meeting procedure, members of the public are only allowed to make one five minute presentation and respond to questions immediately following that from councillors.
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