Late last year there were terrible bushfires across north eastern Victoria. Max Rheese sent us a note suggesting there was a need for more prescribed burning.
Now there is isolated flooding.
Following is a note and some photographs from Ralph Barraclough a landholder and a fire brigade captain with land adjacent and surrounded by the Alpine National Park (pdf file). The National Park contains many nationally significant species including the Bogong Daisy-bush, Mountain Pygmy Possum, Broad-toothed Rat and Alpine Water Skink. Large areas of the park burnt in 2003 and again in December last year.
Greetings,
Well after saving nearly everything when we were burnt out at Licola on December 14 last year, we are now being flooded out.
The damage here is so bad my house would not have a hope in hell of surviving a similar flood again. The debris is nearly as high as the spoutings and the previous biggest flood hight never even got to the footings after 36mm of rain in 20 minutes. This flood was from 28mm in 45 minutes.
Target Creek, Friday night 6pm
The first the locals knew I was in trouble was when 3km away at Licola they saw my worldly posesions floating down the local river. They are collecting my equipment 50km downstream. I live on a small creek that is a tributory.
The flood through my house was so intense it washed a Land Rover engine block out of my shed into the garden. The floor boards came up from the water underneath and tipped over all the stuff I had stored on chaires and stools to try and be above the flood waters. Industrial sewing machines were washed down along the creek.
I nearley drowned trying to get a Land Rover out of a shed when a tidel wave pushed me back in. There was so much debris floating around I had great difficulty remaining upright.
I am expecting more floods like this and this is nowhere like the worst case scenario. The country is just so burnt there is nothing to slow the water from getting into streams. Things are so bad here I will be salvaging as much as possible from my house and taking it to higher ground than Noah would consider drowning. Last week flooding wrecked a building site replacing a lost house from the fire. The new house suffered serious structural damege, a site hut was utterly flattened and a caravan ended up on a meter of debris.
Licola itself was also flooded out. The shop had water through it, all up 2 houses and the living area of the shop may have to be rebuilt. We have had tremendous help from the SES, Police and Wellington Shire and some of the local dear hunters. The CFA has offered very welcome support.
My files from the last 9 years of trying to https://cialico.com stop these things from happening were all removed from the house only hours before the flood and survive.
Regards,
Ralph Barraclough
Lincola, Victoria
Target Creek, Saturday morning 10am
Jamieson Road, Saturday morning
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Not good times for you at the moment Ralph and others in Licola. Unfortunately, you are probably going to get more of the same for sometime to come, depending on rainfall events.
I hope for your sakes that the rainfall patterns are kind to you over the next 12 months.
Jennifer, this is a scenario that is unfortunately being played out right across the mountains, in areas hit hard by these high intensity fires, where vast areas have had the ground vegetation obliterated, leaving the soils exposed to extreme erosion from medium to high level rainfall events.
Where’s the mainstream media interest? Why is there no publicity for those out of the way areas in the mountains, where people do not live and yet obviously there is environmental catastrophe continuing? A good case of out of sight out of mind.
I have now seen vast areas in a number of areas (the Tambo, Nicholson, Mitchell, Dargo, Wentworth, Wonnangatta River catchments and most of their tributaries) where severe crowning has removed all ground cover and it’s root systems, from the riparian up to the ridge lines. Large areas, often running for many kilometers only have the blackened trunks of the trees standing. Slopes are often 30deg. plus. Large areas of mountainsides can be seen that are ready to slip. Some have already started and where rain has fallen like it has in Licola, many gullies have been gutted down to bedrock for their entire lengths.
Creek and river beds are becoming overlain with a slimy mud (up to 450mls deep), with the water a chocolate colored soup. Dead fish everywhere. Large fish can been seen slowly swimming on the surface, their slime covered backs out of the water, their mouths rising out of the water, gulping for air every now and again.
Normal turbidity levels for these waterways would be around 2-5 mg/l (suspended solids) at base flow rates (when inflow is mainly derived from groundwater sources), up to 12-20 mg/l after rainfall events. Suspended sediment levels of 100 mg/l would be rare events. It takes large floods to produce these levels in mountain waterways.
Gippsland Water released some suspended sediment levels the other day, which I believe were taken from the Mitchell River, well below the areas where the rain fell on severely burnt ground.
They recorded 3,900 mg/l of suspended sediment and I think I could confidently suggest, that you could go to specific areas, closer to fire impact zones and get much higher readings than this.
Using the “Severity of effect table” a 14 point scale table by Newcombe and Macdonald (1991), a level of 3600mg/l over a 24 hour period has a severity effect of 12, which equates to a “ >40 to 60% mortality, severe habitat degradation.” This particular reference uses the Mountain Galaxia (G. Maculatus) in the test.
Many waterways may potentially have such extreme elevations in suspended sediments for weeks, depending on rainfall patterns.
Even after only a few millimeters of rain, the ground on the mountainsides turns to a black slimy, oil like consistency, while the soil is bone dry an inch or two under it.
There are dead deer and wallabies floating in the rivers in many places. For a few short kilometers in the Dargo River, just out of Dargo, there are dozens of dead deer in the river or lying on the bank.
And we have not seen consistent, heavy rains yet…….
What will be the effects on the lakes at Lakes Entrance? I expect a massive outbreak of blue-green algae never seen before in scale.
I noticed the ABC refers to these mudslides in Licola as being due to “flash flooding”, with no inference or association being made as to its relationship with the wildfire. They are treating the two events as two separate incidences. Why?
And further, when they first reported it, they referred to the thunderstorms as “violent” thunderstorms, although I believe rain totals were around 25-28 mls. How were they “violent”?
This seems to be a continuing habit of the ABC (and other mainstream media), that is, to exaggerate the description of weather events. Why could that be?
We really do need a Royal Commission into land and water management in Victoria. I am sure you will find the slimy, muddy waters extending further than our waterways.
The difference between a hot fire and a cold fire is that the hot fire turns the upper soil layer into a very fine dust that is extremely erodable. And when it is eroded, by quite mild rainfall events, it settles in the creek pools and sets hard like cement.
Of course the ABC won’t cover the story. Or if they do it will be on Landline at midday on Sundays where it will be watched by 7 aspiring hobby farmers, six goats and a worm cluster.
The EPA has proven itself incapable of exercising proper environmental stewardship of these forests. They should be broken up and freeholded, with a covenant to maintain an on-going forestry purpose.
At least the wildlife would have a future and our kids will get to see what a properly managed forest estate looks like. At the moment all they will ever see is a mountainous desert.
I remember in Sunday school we were taught not to build upon the sand. Same goes for creek beds. I suggest moving up one of those hills a little bit.
David, the same thought occurred to me when I was reading this thread. It really is no good complaining about flood when your house is built in a floodway.
one wonders why this person decided to build where he did. was there no geographical study of the property done first?
you dont camp in river beds or flood plains, so why would you build a house/shed there?
Gosh, so now we have experts in house location seeking to divert the story with some sort of blame on the victim. You are talking through your backsides, fellas, because you don’t know the size of the catchment that feeds that piece of creek.
Ralph did say small tributary and the next mornings creek flow makes it very clear that the previous days flow was most abnormal. If it was in a larger catchment there would still be a larger flow in the creek next day.
It used to be a good place to live but under the brave new green utopia that is no longer the case.
For the information of all those making incorrect assumptions about the house: The house has been there since about 1930. This is the first time the creek has touched it (although there was ONCE one corner was damped for a day. That flood took longer to come up, and longer to go down)
Further to last – it is perhaps not clear that that is not the house in the photograph. It is a shed. The house is not shown in photographs, and is further upstream.
despite the last few comments, it doesnt take an einstein to understand how and why the land is in that formation. sorry for the guy’s loss, but regardless of the house being there for 80 years, there’s been water in that place before, and no doubt there will be again!
motty, the catchment visible in just these few photos is enough to warn you of impending water flow. are you going to be so predictable and leap to the attack of the urbanists and pretend that a valley land formation is not going to funnel water directly through the middle???
well well, doesnt bade well for our landholders if they have missed this most fundamental observation.
but i guess more erratic rainfall patterns and climate change have zero link too.
Which part of the term “catchment size” is beyond your comprehension, Julian? That is not a riverine riparian area, it is an intermittent stream. It is so intermittent that the flow is negligible the day after a less than median sized downpour.
You also have local knowledge to confirm that no flooding has taken place since 1930 yet you continue to pluck pronunciamentos out of your bum in direct variance with the facts. Give us a break.
I can’t believe that some are trying to shift blame onto the victims! I was up in Licola immediately after the fire, helping clear away the twisted metal & melted glass etc from a mate’s completely burned out home. He lost everything whilst assisting a neighbour to save theirs. Since then he has worked like a beaver to clean up erect a temporary dwelling/home which has now been wrecked by the wall of water & debris.
My thoughts & best wishes go out to Licola residents. What they needare supportive gestures to assist in getting their lives & homes back together, not idiots who seek to blame by making them out to be ignorant. They know their country better than anyone else. If your home had been standing for 80 years why would you fear flooding? This was not a ‘normal’ flood, this is a disaster resulting directly from the recent fire.
We all know that Ralph Barraclough is a ‘colourful’ character, & a thorn in the side of government, but I assure you he knows of what he speaks, he is an extremely knowlegeable man, with huge energy & passion. His dedication to his community is second to none. Listen to him.
regards
Cuppa
Julian,
These mountains for hundreds of square kilometers have had their ground vegetation all but obliterated, by high intensity, environmentally unsustainable wildfire. There are areas adjacent to high intensity burn areas that remain unburnt, which provide remnant examples of high fuel load cover. If you want examples I can give you plenty.
What has come into Licola was not exactly water.
It was mud and debris that has been washed from the mountainsides and riparian zones. This is being repeated across the mountains, where ever there was high intensity fires followed by a medium to heavy rain. It’s happening right at this moment.
With the ground cover stripped the erosional potential is extreme. We now have sheet erosion across mountain slopes which is usually protected by plant matter and other ‘fixed’ debris.
Now stones, rocks and chunks of bedrock being mixed into a sludge of soil, charcoal and ash is running off 25-45deg slopes, many 100’s of metres high. Hundreds of thousands of tons of material, across the mountains, is being eroded away in one medium rain event alone.
Much of this ends up in the water courses below, with the sediment carrying capacity of the available water determining the extent/volume of eroded material that will be transported downstream. Much is dumped along the banks according to the depositional characteristics of that waterway.
The initial downpour would see a debris buildup form at the head of the water draining from the mountains, causing the velocity to slow, the water to spread and the pushing power to increase, thus bulldozing all before it. Witnesses saw walls of debris 15 ft high coming down the Mitchell River, East Gippsland following the 1939 fires after a heavy rain.
There are massive landslips now occurring in the mountains, including many instances of gullies being stripped down to bedrock for kilometers in length. Ancient blue clays and alluvial wash is being exposed along banks, that were buried/deposited thousands of years ago, due to the recently laid sediment deposits overlying it being stripped. Why is this happening?
It will take a very long time for these gullies to regain their geological stability. Some have now got very steep high banks on them with no vegetation. Undoubtedly, the sides of these gullies will collapse and erode for sometime to come.
In comparison…….
In 1998 we had massive floods in East Gippsland where it rained heavily, for days on end. Our local river, with a 2-3 metre average, maybe 3 metres in a flood, was roaring with a depth exceeding the height of the willows that grow along its bank. 10 metres plus, with all the local creeks and gullies very much alive. Prior to that the river was low, creeks were drying up and the lesser gullies were bone dry.
During the time of the 1998 floods, there were no gullies that came remotely close to being eroded to the extent that has now occurred. So why is it happening now?
Before you continue to pluck GW as a cause, I think you should first start with the fundamental principles of over-vegetation and lack of fire within many of our forest systems. Excessive fuel, drought, wind and fire Julian. What we have now are heat loads sometimes as high as 180,000kw per sq. metre, cooking the ground. The principles involved here ain’t rocket science and the outcomes disastrous.
Here, here Cuppa. Ralph has put in an extra ordinary effort for many, many years to try and get the government to urgently pick up their act on fuel reduction burn programs, to avoid/ameliorate the very thing that has just happened.
Julian take Ian Motts advice.
It’s always someone’s fault. And usually, they’re the easy targets (bloody greenies etc.)
Not wishing to get into nit-picking but, Julian wrote:
despite the last few comments, it doesnt take an einstein to understand how and why the land is in that formation. sorry for the guy’s loss, but regardless of the house being there for 80 years, there’s been water in that place before, and no doubt there will be again! [End]
Yep. Sure. Because a few hundred thousand years ago, Target Creek was actually the original bed of either the Barkley or the Macalister. Forget which. But it was originally the river course, now cut off – which explains why there is such a small creek in such a large valley.
So please do not assume the creek is totally responsible for that landscape.
There are now seriously eroded gullies up there that hardly even run a trickle after five inches of rain.
There are now huge rock falls over the road, which have not occurred since it was built in the 1940s. Rocks of that size are actually not found as free rocks, anywhere in the Target Creek valley. Now they are.
So I think it is safe to say that this is an occurrence that has not happened since European occupation.
Or for a heck of a long time before.
Further to my post above on turbidity levels…
This morning turbidity levels of 78,000mg/l were recorded on the Macalister River as, it enters Lake Glenmaggie. Many waterways draining from the badly burnt areas will be the same. As mentioned in my above post ‘normal’ levels fluctuate between 2- 20mg/l.
These levels blow the severity scale (Newcombe and Macdonald, 1991) out of the roof. My previous post mentions earlier recordings of 3600mg/l (a few days ago) getting a score of 12. The highest score is 14, which reads “80-100% mortality, total habitat destruction”. 78,000mg/l would require a score of well over 20, which does not exist. I think the department had better contact Newcombe or Macdonald and have their severity charts revised.
This severity table was presented by the Department of Natural Resources in the Parlimentary Inquiry into portable Eductor Gold Dredging (1991). In this inquiry the department decided that the levels of turbidity created by eductor gold dredging at between 12 mg/l to 50mg/l was potentially damaging certain species within the rivers. It may even contribute to the extinction of species they said. This was despite the fact that these increases in turbidity were highly localized and that normal increases in flow after rain, produced higher levels for a waterways entire length.
The departments behaviour during this issue is very reminiscent of what is currently happening with this AGW issue. That is, they would not listen to any dissenting points of view, even though, what they were claiming as ‘environmental damage’ was observably ludicrous. It seems that the lack of an ‘official’ report was their reason. All the reports being written were by a biased green bureaucracy.
So now we have flows coming down these same rivers, that the local water authorities are calling “like custard”, while government authorities and pretend environmentalists are calling these wildfires a ‘natural event’. When EGD’s operated in these same rivers, the smallest rise in background turbidity levels was said to potentially endanger species. How things change.
Clearly, Stewie, there is one standard for those who govern and another altogether for the governed. Those who govern have all the authority but no responsibility while the governed have all the responsibility but none of the authority.
Lets face it, we are talking about “unrepresentative, unaccountable swill” here. They are persecuting predatory scum who are a law unto themselves. They have no interest in the environment beyond the acquisition and exercise of control as the primary end in itself. And they have clearly demonstrated that this end justifies any means.
It has got to the point where any co-operation with these people is actually collaboration with an occupying power. Co-operation with them has become an act of betrayal of their victims, the communities that must live and work near any land that they occupy.
It is entirely appropriate, as you have done here, to observe, record and inform on the extent of the damage this scum is capable of doing, in the name of intergenerational equity no less.
But it is important to ensure that they get no assistance in their management of stolen property. We owe it to the kids to ensure that thieves get no benefit from goods obtained by deception. And we owe it to the kids to ensure that the only way to restore and protect a healthy environment is for the thieving scum to give it back to the people who know how to.
This is not an isolated case, what has been described above by both Stewie and Ralph has been happenning up and down the ranges from Canberra south to Victoria.
The ACT required a new, never before required, water treatment facility to be built in the year after the 2003 fires due to the massive amount of sedimentation and increased run off following those fires.
What really annoys me though is that opponents of fuel reduction burning cite model after model to support their non-interventionist philosophies. Yet, when a critical eye is passed over those very same models, the glaring omission is an utter lack of benchmarking against the kinds of extremely broad scale environmental damage that occurs after such wildfires.
Many ecological models fail such simple requirements as a comparison with the impact of major disturbance events, instead focussing on the impacts of a minor disturbance event against a theoretically undisturbed ecosystem.
It’s bloody tragic really because the intellectual capacity does exist, though it seems the political will may not.
Good point, Peter, the last thing these people want is a test of significance or relevance.
But best watch and wait. Next time one of these clowns claims that it is all natural then keep a copy because when that is presented to a court it will mean that brown custard every 3 years is a natural event that must, therefore, be something that all species have evolved to deal with.
They will dig their own hole.