Queensland flooded, maybe out of drought

Lusankya · Post by **Lusankya** » 2008-01-22 05:19am

Floods spur review of drought status

PREMIER Anna Bligh will review within the month the drought status of much of western Queensland, where dams are filling up rapidly.

Virtually all of Queensland south of the Tropic of Capricorn and excluding the highly urbanised south-east is drought declared, in many cases for several years.

But not only are many parts of western Queensland in flood, many dams are filling rapidly, guaranteeing water supply for at least the next few years.

One example is the cotton-growing region of St George, west of Charleville, where three of four dams are full, with the other at more than 90 per cent capacity and filling rapidly.

Queensland's two biggest dams, Burdekin Falls and Fairbairn, are both full, while of the 68 smaller dams run throughout the state by government water supplier SunWater, half are at 100 per cent capacity. On the other hand, Charleville, which is bracing for an expected peak of floodwaters at 9am this morning, has been drought-declared since 2003, and is still officially in drought.

Ms Bligh said it was a "great irony" that many of the areas that had been in drought for several years were now affected by floods, but her priority was to help people get through the current situation.

"Some of those drought declarations will have to be reviewed," she said. "But some of these shires are very large, and we shouldn't assume that they've all had the same amounts of rain."

She said that while the drought was over in some parts of the state, it was too soon to declare an end to the drought.

So far, the floods have caused at least $50 million in damage to public facilities, but farmers claim they could be out of pocket by $1billion through crop and stock losses, while the mining industry claims the floods will cost them "tens of millions of dollars".

I love this country. You can have 2/3 of a state under water, and people are still not sure whether the drought is over or not. Then you have the cases where it snows on top of bushfires. It's like upside-down land.

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-01-22 06:10am

Yaaaay! Finally some good news!

Well, sorta. Flood ain't exactly great.

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2008-01-22 06:16am

Dammit, just when we were going to offer our flood water at a discount!

Lusankya · Post by **Lusankya** » 2008-01-22 07:36am

Zablorg wrote:Yaaaay! Finally some good news!

Well, sorta. Flood ain't exactly great.

Heh, Australia. Where else in the world does the entire nation say, "Yaaaay! Floods!"

tim31 · Post by **tim31** » 2008-01-22 10:27am

I know my brother in law wasn't complaining when most of his paddocks had a foot of water covering them. Especially when he'd done his seeding about a month before. Should be a good harvest this year.

I love this upside-down land too.

The_Saint · Post by **The_Saint** » 2008-01-22 06:54pm

Doesn't matter how much it floods if the dams only full for a month...

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2008-01-22 07:11pm

And the stupid thing is that the one area of the state which isn't drought declared, South-East Queensland, is in the most need of water. Both the Sunshine and Gold Coasts are fine, but the capital Brisbane is screwed. If not for the summer rains, we wouldn't have had enough water to last us through Autumn. As it is, I think we've only got enough now to last us until mid-winter.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-01-22 07:21pm

The UK has similar issues, since we have weather, not a climate. Our location on the planet is unique and gives us a bit of everything. And incompetent water companies mean we can have hose pipe bans even after a wet summer.

This is also what throws people off climate change. They think everywhere gets hotter and drier, but you can't get rid of all that water as if it was nothing, so other places flood when normally they didn't, and winter storms form elsewhere more ferociously and so on.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2008-01-22 10:46pm

There were times during droughts in Georgia where even strong rain storms didn't alleviate matters at all; the ground was so dry that when the downpours started, the water all just washed away and didn't sink in at all. Sometimes there would even be flash floods because the water wasn't being absorbed by the ground. It might not even have flooded if there hadn't been a drought.

I don't know if that's the case for Queensland or not, but I'm just saying how you can have flooding without drought going away.

How are the aquifers, by the way? Have they been drained pretty badly too? It takes a long time to recharge them.

Phantasee · Post by **Phantasee** » 2008-01-22 10:52pm

I hope Stark didn't get all wet...the same for the rest of you crazy characters from Oz.

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2008-01-22 11:17pm

The_Saint wrote:Doesn't matter how much it floods if the dams only full for a month...

guaranteeing water supply for at least the next few years.

So dere.

The_Saint · Post by **The_Saint** » 2008-01-23 07:05pm

Zablorg wrote:
guaranteeing water supply for at least the next few years.
So dere.

Great.. drinking water out of a tap... but what about the farmers dam out the back for livestock... Mayabird mentioned aquifers.. The water table in a lot of places out that way is pretty fucked and getting worse, I put $1 here and now on there being water shortage issues next summer... One flood does not fix the water problems around here.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2008-01-24 01:03am

The_Saint wrote:
Zablorg wrote:
guaranteeing water supply for at least the next few years.
So dere.
Great.. drinking water out of a tap... but what about the farmers dam out the back for livestock... Mayabird mentioned aquifers.. The water table in a lot of places out that way is pretty fucked and getting worse, I put $1 here and now on there being water shortage issues next summer... One flood does not fix the water problems around here.

Now that I think about it, after reading your post, having a flood could actually make the water problems down the road worse. People see all the water around and get lazy about proper water management, not thinking that this might be the only water they're going to get for a while. Slack off, waste what they have, and go into the next drought with bad habits.