DRAINAGE isn’t usually something that fires up a community, but after five floods in the space of eight months it’s a topic that has captured the imagination and the passion of more than just a few Coffs Harbour residents.
A meeting in the city on Tuesday night to address the issue of drains drew a crowd of about 150 people
Member for Coffs Harbour, Andrew Fraser, organised the meeting and was both frustrated and heartened by the response.
“The meeting showed that people are sick and tired of being flooded and want things done immediately to reduce the risk now and in the future,” Mr Fraser said.
“They know that the city’s drains are the cause of the problem and they want issues about stormwater runoff fixed.”
Mr Fraser said numerous flooding hotspots around the city were highlighted throughout the meeting to indicate how widespread the drainage problem was.
“People know that our old drains are no longer coping because of new developments limiting the ability of the environment to absorb the rain or disperse the water,” he said.
“Park Avenue now floods because the drainage that used to be provided by Castle Street was wiped out with the building of the Woolworths car park.
“Similarly, the meeting heard how people believe the Cook Drive Industrial Estate now floods because the drains there can’t cope with the extra water streaming down from the Lakes Estate.
“The irony is the drainage at The Lakes Estate is probably very good, but the drains downstream at Cook Drive haven’t been upgraded to cope with the extra water being funnelled into them.
“It’s no different in the city’s catchment. All the drainage in new developments is doing is channeling water into drains downstream, which can no longer cope, and hence overflow and flood the city.”
Mr Fraser said frustration about this year’s spate of flooding led to a motion being put calling for a moratorium on all new development in the city until the drainage problem was fixed.
That motion was not endorsed.
“As much as I can understand why people see that as a solution, I couldn’t support it,” Mr Fraser said.
“As a priority we need all the city’s existing waterways, creeks and drains cleaned out, and we need urgent funding to upgrade the drainage system.”
Mr Fraser extended an offer that he and the Member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker will go hand-in-hand with the Coffs Harbour City Council to the State and Federal Governments to get the funding necessary for a detailed flood study and to fix the problem.
“We need to work together to fund solutions immediately,” he said.
Coffs Harbour Mayor, Keith Rhoades, said he fully supported a bi-partisan approach to finding solutions that involved all tiers of government.
“I have no trouble working with Andrew or Luke to get the ear of the State and Federal Governments and get the funding we need,” Cr Rhoades said.
“I also want to involve the insurance companies, get them to kick the can, if you like, because any measures to reduce the risk of flooding will be a huge financial benefit to them as well.”
The Mayor said he particularly wanted government agencies to remove a lot of the red tape which slowed down and sometimes prevented the cleaning up of waterways.
“That whole process of getting permits needs to be made a lot easier and quicker,” he said.
“We are ready to go to clean our drains and creeks, not just of debris, but also huge amounts of built up silt.”
Cr Rhoades said he also couldn’t support any calls for a moratorium on new development in the city because of the vital importance of the building industry to the area’s economy.
“We need to be open to all ideas about future proofing our city,” he said.
“Only the other day I was talking to an old local about past floods and he suggested that maybe the removal of the banana plantations from Red Hill might be responsible for what’s been happening.”
“I think we do need to look at the reafforrestation of the city’s catchment as a long-term measure, as well as the more urgent upgrading of our drainage and stormwater systems.”
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter