Danger of development in known flood plains

Credit:Illustration: Megan Herbert

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FLOODING

Danger of development in known flood plains

Avondale Heights residents approached Moonee Valley Council on several occasions and attended a council forum on October 15, 2019 with a number of concerns regarding the development of the Rivervue Retirement Village in Avondale Heights.

One concern was that some of the homes were being constructed on an area close to the river in a flood-prone zone. The last major flood in this area occurred during the 1970s. Some residents of Rivervue, whose homes are in this low-lying area, a flood plain, have now been severely inundated – flooded.

The following is an extract from my presentation at the council forum in 2019 and it was repeated in a letter sent to the council two days later: “In addition, the current plans also allows the building of homes very close to the Maribyrnong River in an area that is prone to flooding, thus placing the senior citizens who are likely to purchase homes in this area at risk”. Will the council take responsibility for releasing land for development in a flood plain?
Clara Rizzi, Avondale Heights

We are paying the price for the suburban spread

It is pretty simple. As we cover ever greater farming and forest areas with roofs, driveways, roads, footpaths, shopping centres and the like, we remove the ability for the land to absorb rainfall and slow the rise of rivers. This now goes through man-made, stormwater systems and ends up in creeks and rivers, leading to rapid rises and flooding that otherwise would not have happened. Stop the inexorable suburban spread of Melbourne and regional areas.
Paul Cribb, Mallacoota

How could they not have known the risks of wall?

The Flemington Racecourse is built on a flood plain. A wall was built around the complex to protect it from flooding. As a result, the floodwaters have been forced elsewhere causing great devastation and upheaval for many families in the area. I am sure that, back in the early 2000s when the wall was built, this fact was pointed out to the state government and the Victoria Racing Club.
Paul Chivers, Box Hill North

Governments refuse to listen to locals’ concerns

Considering the shocking flood situation, it is unbelievable that both the federal and state governments have supported the building of a tourism resort on a sand bar of the Gellibrand River flood plain at Princetown. The governments have given major tourism grants, including a $650,000 grant, and are constructing major infrastructure – a road, a dual-lane bridge – for this resort. The local community has provided records and photo evidence of major flooding on much of the site and strongly advised of the high risks of this development. Why won’t governments listen?
Marion Manifold, secretary, Port Campbell Community Group Inc

Surely it’s time for consumers to use more water

Three consecutive La Nina events means catchments are full and unable to prevent floodwater flowing downstream, yet we are still penalised for using excess water – ie, we pay a higher rate per litre once we have used a certain number of litres. Shouldn’t the excess water charges be removed once catchments get to 90per cent? If catchments are full and we are in a La Nina, we should penalise those who do not use enough water rather than those who use too much.
Stephen Corneille, Lower Plenty

Despite the criticism, Mickleham has many uses

Eight days ago your headline screamed: “What now for the white elephant in the room?” (Sunday Age, 9/10). Less than a week later the question of what to do with the Mickleham quarantine facility was answered: emergency accommodation for the flood victims. In the future perhaps Mickleham could be used by the homeless or victims of other natural disasters.
Judith Dunn, Bentleigh East

THE FORUM

A taste of what’s to come

No, Geoff Crapper (Sunday Age, 16/10), a dam at Arundel would not have stopped floodwaters if it were full already, which, like all Victorian dams today, would most likely have been the case. A full dam will overflow the same volume of floodwater.

This event is another example of our need to accept how our actions impact our surroundings and that we are a part of the environment, not apart from it. With the ever-increasing, extreme weather events, we need to reduce impact to our climate rather than focus on mitigating the consequences of living in flood-prone areas. These floods are just a taste of what will become commonplace.
Steve Haylock, Mount Waverley

Via well-drained ground

Unless inland rail is to be built on high bridges for hundreds of kilometres, now would be a good time to again consider the route for fast rail proposed by a retired CSIRO chief in the 1980s. This route went through Gippsland, then up through the hills and on to Canberra and Sydney, using solid, well-drained ground all the way.
Loch Wilson, Northcote

Long wait for fast train

It is quite grotesque that any “public” servant books a business class flight between Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne (Sunday Age, 16/10). Sadly, our governments in the past lacked leadership when we argued, in the 1980s, for a very fast train network from Melbourne to Canberra to Sydney. It would have saved all these flights and many deaths on the roads. What a waste.
Peta Colebatch, Hawthorn

Acknowledge all our wars

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie says the Frontier Wars have no place in the Australian War Memorial because its purpose is to commemorate “Australia’s fallen – those who have died in conflict defending our country” (The Age, 14/10). Doesn’t that describe exactly what those Indigenous warriors were doing?

I made many visits to the Caulfield Repatriation Hospital where my father died and I remember wards full of war-damaged men. I grew up in Prahran’s war memorial – 16 houses rented to war widows for a shilling a week. War is traumatic with a long afterlife.

Having read widely about our participation in World War I, let me assure you it was not fought to defend Australia. Some double standard seems to be in play.

If the memorial’s self-described purpose is to help us understand our country’s wartime experiences, the Frontier Wars must be featured. To mature as a nation we must acknowledge the truths, both good and bad, about ourselves.
Barbara Wertheim, Brunswick

Seeking a smart inventor

When will someone invent a substance that, when sprayed or painted on, will enable graffiti (Sunday Age, 16/9) to wash off in the next rainstorm? That’s tomorrow at today’s rate of rain.
Georgina Simmons, Mornington

Give-away in the eyes

Re the cheats in the fishing competition in Ohio (The Age, 14/10). Many years ago a club that I was a member of ran a fishing competition out of Mornington. One member, a keen fisherman, noted at our first year’s “fish weigh in” that a lot of the competitors had fish with opaque eyes.

The following year after the fishermen had returned to the “weigh in”, they were informed that a new testing machine would be used to see if the fish were fresh and had not been frozen. A number of large fish that had been proudly shown off at the jetty did not make it to the judges.
Winston Anderson, Mornington

A courageous decision

Never before have I read a more courageous and gut-wrenching account of the decision to terminate a pregnancy (Good Weekend, 15/10). Anyone who thinks that these decisions are the “easy” way out need only read the story of “Louise Williams” and that of her family.

I am grateful that we do not live in the US, and that in this country, our legislators and healthcare professionals are brave enough to support families in these sorts of difficult and cruellest of times. “Louise”, thank you for sharing your story and, as a result, I am sure that many people will remember Toby for a long time.
Helen Larkin, Ocean Grove

Parents’ third option

My heart goes out to “Louise Williams” and her family. While I am fully supportive of her choice to end Toby’s life in utero to protect him from suffering, I am saddened that she was presented with only two choices: termination, or obligation to “do everything they could to keep him alive – regardless of his levels of pain, or of the horrendous way in which he might die, or of the profound disabilities he’d live with”.

There is a third choice: allowing birth as normal, followed by a natural death, with limitations placed on inappropriate resuscitation and intervention.

As a paediatric palliative care doctor, I consult with many families in similar situations. They are often desperate to meet their baby in person and introduce them to their family, while ensuring comfort through palliative therapies if needed, and cuddling through baby’s final hours.
While still tragic, this third way can provide profound connection which may ease the hearts of parents and siblings in bereavement. It is not the right choice for everyone, but parents should be aware that it is an option.
Dr Molly Williams, Warrandyte

The tax we really need

A “burp tax” on farm animals in New Zealand (World, 12/10)? How would the burps be counted in the first place? It might be easier, and more lucrative, to bring in a fart tax on all people over 75. If it were introduced in Australia, the profits from it would have our economy back in the black in no time.
Peter Dodds, Montmorency

Finding kindred spirits

Re Emma Sullivan’s article, “If you don’t have friends of colour, then that’s a red flag” (Comment, 13/10). Let’s all go out and get some. Hang on though, I live in a small town and there aren’t very many people of colour here. What should I do, Emma, advertise? Perhaps you should stop to consider that whoever our friends are, most of us don’t cultivate specific friendships just because it looks good.
Mary Lyon, Camperdown

The trouble with the Saints

I have been a St Kilda supporter for 80 years and the sacking of coach Brett Ratten is the last straw. I am flabbergasted at some of the salaries being offered to unproven players, and for the club to be chasing the likes of Jordan De Goey when, with proper tuition, we have more than adequate midfielders, leaves me dumbfounded.

The Saints will never be a side to be reckoned with when there is so much infighting between board members, which has been evident for as long as I remember.

Teams in the early 2000s were well-coached and would have run through a brick wall for the guernsey. Ross Lyon should have been a premiership coach in 2010 and since his departure, we have never looked like a team that could win a flag. The club’s president Andrew Bassat is right, we need to toughen up, but the buck stops with him and I hope he is strong enough for the challenge.
Kenneth Clarke, Wangaratta

Faith, doubt, literacy

Parnell Palme McGuinness – “I’m an atheist and I’m ashamed of it” (The Age, 15/10) – is wrong to espouse religious literacy as the saviour of our society. Literacy is vital for a liberal and tolerant society, but it has never been the domain of faith alone. It is simplistic to suggest that “the religious imperative’ has “thickened the nerve fibres connecting the left and right hemispheres of our brains”.

Philosophical literacy would serve far better in leading society to humility and tolerance. Religious thinkers from all faiths are amongst humankind’s great philosophers, but many more philosophers are agnostic or atheist, and their ideas cannot be discounted.

Indeed, our ability to inhabit the tension between ideas of faith and doubt (as in the Enlightenment) has led to great advancement of civilisations. Religious literacy that is too narrowly focused is as likely to promote pride and intolerance as atheism or the worldwide web.
Pip Karoly, West Melbourne

Living an ethical life

An interesting article from Parnell Palme McGuinness. It is only in questioning that we can come to clear understanding of what religion has given us and what it also demands of us with rules and regulations.
These days I call myself a searching agnostic because the foundations of my faith have left me wanting. The religious rules and rubrics have little to do with life today and society.

But we need to look deeper to discover the humility and tolerance that comes from a spiritual connection, and today’s technology can help us to discover even more. The idea of a punishing God is outdated and has nothing to do with living an ethical life. It is about living justly and compassionately and searching for a deeper connection with each other.
Julie Ottobre, Sorrento

No to Warner as captain

Douglas Jardine instructed his bowlers to attack Donald Bradman’s body and we hated him for it. David Warner was a key player in the “Sandpaper Gate” travesty in South Africa and must never captain an Australian cricket team. Have you got the message, Cricket Australia?
Andrew Dowling, Torquay

Show us their faces

Why are car windows that are heavily tinted legal? At times it is vital to make eye contact with other drivers, and especially so if you are a pedestrian trying to cross a busy road. We spend so much time, effort and money on road safety but allow car companies to manufacture vehicles with darkened windows that make drivers invisible. Maybe it is a deliberate ploy to prevent drivers who are on the phone or texting from being caught.
Colin Denovan, Camberwell

AND ANOTHER THING

Floods

People who drive cars through floods against all warnings and then have to be rescued by the SES should be sent a bill to cover the cost. Say $5000 minimum.
John Savage, Bendigo

I’ve received an email from a department store with the heading, ″⁣Bring spring inside your home″⁣. Many of us are hoping to keep any springs outside our homes.
Wilma Hills, Echuca

The Mickleham quarantine facility could be used to house flood refugees. It’s not a white elephant after all.
Anne Flanagan, Box Hill North

Sport

Novak Djokovic, you made your decision, now suffer the consequences. Banned from entering Australia for three years.
Christine Hammett, Richmond

What were my Saints thinking? Setting themselves up for one more premiership in the next 150 years?
Tony Lenten, Glen Waverley

Thank you and farewell, Brodie Grundy. I’d hoped you’d be a Pie for life. It will be ironic when you’re the difference in next year’s grand final.
James Young, Mount Eliza

Long time Essendon supporter, big time despair.
Rosslyn Jennings, North Melbourne

Furthermore

The Chinese government has the same grasp on diplomacy with first world, democratic nations as Putin has with military strategy.
Murray Horne, Cressy

Putin’s excuse for continuing to inflict terror on civilians: the Ukrainians made me do it.
Vera Lubczenko, Geelong West

If farmers are taxed for their animals’ methane emissions (12/10), will NZ also tax its citizens each time they fart?
Geoff McDonald, Newtown

How do coal and gas methane emissions compare to livestock emissions?
Helen Davison, Burnley

DA’s quick crossword, with all its ″⁣split″⁣ clues (14/10), gave me a splitting headache.
Jon Smith, Leongatha

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