From
Operator of dam ‘invented’ rain data
EXTREME rainfall so rare it happens on average once every 2000 years has been “invented” by the government operator of a major Queensland dam as part of its explanation for releasing huge volumes of water that caused most of Brisbane’s January flood.
The claim by SEQWater in its official report that a “one-in-2000-year” rainfall event occurred over the Wivenhoe Dam at a critical stage on January 11 has been widely reported in the media and cited by senior public servants to justify the near loss of control of the dam at the time.
But no such rainfall event was measured by any rainfall gauges. Instead, the claim was manufactured by SEQWater after it modelled the rapid rise of levels in the dam, repositioned rainfall data to an area immediately upstream of the dam, and then doubled it.
After extrapolating in this unusual way to achieve an extreme number, the SEQWater report states: “Rainfall of this intensity and duration over the Wivenhoe Dam lake area at such a critical stage of a flood event was unprecedented.
…
The technical report by SEQWater shows it relied on a manual gauge of dam levels, not the actual rainfall in gauges, to extrapolate data to claim the occurrence of a one-in-2000-year event.
However, in doing this, SEQWater disregarded the data from a nearby electronic gauge, which showed dam levels lower than those in the manual gauge.
Full story here
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My heart goes out to the people of Queensland and in particular, Brisbane, where I visited last year. Heads should roll over this. h/t to WUWT reader Betapug
UPDATE: Reader Frank K points out this article by skeptical cartoonist John Cook in ABC:
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2011/01/17/3114597.htm
The headline:
The essay was also posted on his antithetically named “Skeptical Science” blog:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/OK-global-warming-this-time-its-personal.html
He’s right about one thing, this event IS personal, and preventable. And, I’m willing to bet there will be scads of very personal lawsuits by people who have been grievously harmed by the government ineptitude in managing the dam.
If Mr. Cook has any integrity, he’ll retract his story. But, I doubt he will.
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Ian H says: March 28, 2011 at 7:59 pm
“The lawyers thing isn’t really the Aussie style. ”
Yes, but Swiss Re is not an Aussi company, and they might try to avoid paying out a Billion dollars if they can find that the cause was not natural, but rather the result of the actions (or lack thereof) of someone they can sue.
http://www.swissre.com/rethinking/natcat/Flooding_in_Australia_The_reality_of_a_secondary_peril.html
Date: 07.06.2007-10.06.2007
Location: NSW, Hunter Region, Newcastle, Singleton, Maitland
Cause: Storms, floods
Insured loss in AUD m inflated to 2011: 1,170
Changing that ‘Cause’ column would save One Billion dollars of inversors money, even if they spent 170 Million dollars to prove it.
Who knows, they might just want to have a bit of a look.
David W – thank you for your patient explanations. Don’t forget that some posts here are simply re-posts of purportedly reputable reports. Part of the value of having them here is that interested and knowledgable people can sort the wheat from the chaff.
David W says:
March 28, 2011 at 4:04 pm
***Incorrect Gerald. I suggest you become better informed in relation to the forecasts.
In fact most models, and certainly all the reliable ones, were forecasting the heavy rainfalls to be South of the dams catchment areas. Earlier releases in those circumstances would have been a very bad move.***
I understand that the outlook was for an above average cyclone season.
Of course Tim Flannery was still talking dry. They were aware that a large amounts of rain could come.
***Arguments on earlier releases have generally come from people with little or NO experience in understanding of weather forecasting and the computer models used to do so.***
Really? I think they should have looked past what the models were doing as the dams were already holding a lot of water.
It is too late for this now but The Australian on January 13 published an article about a report that advised against building on the flood plain.
In 1974 I did see the grass hanging from the electrical wires in Brisbane after the flood.
David W,
I fully support the comments of Old Engineer. Your input has helped (enormously) to get things into perspective. Not everything is reported right, but one of the benefits of a lightly moderated blog is that it offers the ability to shine different lights on an issue.
Just to add insult to injury – my water is supplied by SEQWater, after my local governments water assets were compulsorily acquired by the state government (for an unfair price, I might add). They then created a couple of corporations, installed big-money CEOs and built some shiny new offices. To further insult, they took the advice of Tim ‘1000 years’ Flannery, and built a multi-billion dollar desalination plant (right on the coastline, in the path of future AGW-caused sea level rise), which was finished just in time for the major supply dams to be overtopped with water and flood the community.
So what we have here is:
-water assets taken forcibly from local governments, who had paid for them over years with council rates (read: property tax).
-massive new bureaucracies created complete with new offices, new CEOs and new salary packages for all the staff.
-huge mailouts of slick glossy brochures informing us of the new corporatised entities which will now be selling us our water (as if we could switch to another supplier!)
-massive new multi-billion dollar desalination plant which is now quietly rusting by the sea as rainfall reverts to long-term trend
You might think all of the above sounds expensive. Well, it is. I used to pay about $400 a year for water connection and supply, including no restrictions as we are blessed in my local area with high and consistent rainfall. The prices charged have been increasing by 20% per year, year on year, and now we have water restrictions, despite -as I type- water is flowing over the spillways still. At my last count this is now approaching $1000 / year just for my water. I’ll just remind you that in my local area no new infrastructure has been built, and the local council has had to raise the rates (taxes) on property to make up for the lost income from water.
All this, courtesy of a combination of inept big spending state governments coupled with a slavish devotion to the AGW scare.
You might think I’m a lone person raving about this, but every single person I know feels the same way. And I haven’t even brought up electricity prices, also sent skyrocketing from inept governments and ridiculous pro-AGW policies.
The newspaper article makes assertions but does not demonstrate or prove a case against the dam operators methods and claims. From what I have seen of the station data,dam levels and radar estimates of rainfall over the body of the dam and 600 km2 of unmetered catchment,the water authorities findings are solid. The report they released provided a detailed justification for their choice of gauge readings.
We are in a bad place when unsubstantiated claims in a newspaper are elevated to an authoritative view. From day one,journalist Hedley Thomas has taken a position hostile to the dam operator,if you bother to look back through his contributions.
Charles Nelson and Stephan:
And how was Flannery chastised for his wrong predictions? Oh that’s right, he was appointed by Julia Gillard as Australia’s chief commissioner of the independent Climate Commission.
I must be losing it… independent doesn’t seem to mean what I think it means…
Sloppy data and research produces sloppy policy.
We are all too familiar with such an approach in the USA….so you are not alone down under.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Thanks for the feedback. Like I’ve said in previous posts I’m a huge supporter of Anthony’s blog and his stance on climate change issues.
I think its very unfortunate that terms like “dam operator caught in fabrication” appear at the start of the post which is probably the part which irked me the most. It is this wording that conveys a very inflammatory impression irrespective of what comes after it and is grossly unfair to the engineers on duty during the floods who I might add do the work on a voluntary basis.
Given whats been posted here I will make it a priority to get my powerpoint presentation on YouTube to hopefully provide people with a little more detail from which to form a conclusion and potentially come to a more informed position on what factors had to be taken into consideration when the duty engineers were making their decisions.
I do not argue that their decisions were perfect nor that we can’t learn from this event to get a better outcome in future floods. But, if people were to fully understand the conditions that gave rise to this event and the forecasts and data that were available to the duty engineers I would hope they would be a little less critical of the decisions made.
My Guess in David W is a Qld Gov troll. If Suncorp etc get their hands on this. It simply not affordable
Hey, Frank K @ur momisugly 12:59 March 28
Wonder if our rising CO2 levels are due to these aliens sneaking in and dumping their carbon pollution in our atmosphere?
There’s a bit of confusion up above. I’ll tak in general and not bicker over detail.
The Wivenhoe dam has its main catchment to their north of it, roughly 40 km EW and 80 km NS depending on how you define it. Rain falling to the east, west or south of the dam does not affect its levels.
Just 2.5 km south of the spillway, that is, below it, a separate river catchment comes in from the west. This is about 20 km NS and 60 km EW, when it meets Toowoomba and its escarpment at the west end. This is the area flooded by names like Gatton and Grantham and Helidon. West of this NS escarpment at Toowomba, the run of the water is further west. So, rain west of Toowoomba can flood Toowoomba but it has little effect on points east of Toowoomba.
Rain south of Brisbane is mostly taken east into the sea by smaller rivers, though some does affect the Brisbane River, which was the main suburban flooding river. So south of Brisbane, rain further than about 20 km away does not impact much on the city.
These separate catchments have some importance in the analysis. The Toowomba floods could happen without the Gatton floods, the Gatton floods could happen with nothing to do with Wivenhoe dam and Brisbane floods can be a mix of Gatton and releases from Wivenhoe.
The important point is that a forecast in the region is critically dependent on the resolution of small distances. An EW error forecast of 10 km in the position of a rain cell can leave Gatton flood-free and Toowoomba flooded, or vice versa.
Personally, I have doubt that weather forecasting of flood events in the region is capable of this resolution. This places an extra burden on the engineer manager of the Wivenhoe Dam. I have nothing to add whether the correct decision was made at the time.
I merely note that excess dependence on forecasts at their limits of resolution can be fatal. They were.
Please note that some comments are being taken out of context and need some clarification and the title of the post is also misleading. The SEQWater Report http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/commission/documents/report-append.pdf provides an explanation for the difference in electronic versus manually observed dam water levels. These levels have noting to do with recorded rainfall. The electronic dam water levels are monitored in a location near the spillway outflow and are reported to have been depressed due to the effect of (the not insignificant) outflows from the sluice gates. Anyone familiar with or a smattering of knowledge of hydraulic flow will be able to understand this observation or can pyhsically model it in the back yard. The manual dam level readings were reportedly taken by on site personel against water level markers (common in all large Queensland dams) not affected by hydraulic effects. From those readings, plus down stream river levels, it is basic maths to work out volume changes, inflows and out flows. You don’t need to make anything up.
I don’t know what the statistical recurrence intervals of a storm of that magnitude are but historical flood data published by BOM would suggest that it is more common that we should be comfortable with and much less than 2000 years. Whatever the number, I think it is fair and reasonable to say that there was a lot of water in the dam and they didn’t make that part of it up.
There are also radar observations of the storm path and enough local rainfall data to calibrate and verify radar obsevations and the claims in the report. Weatherzone fans have screen caps of the event should there be concerns of cover up.
At the risk of accusations of obfuscation (again), some additional reading for those unfamiliar with South East Qld. rainfall is here http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_reports/brisbaneflash_mar2001.pdf
You can’t make this stuff up and get away with it but you can make wild claims and be found wanting in understanding the information presented.
I would also note that in 1999 there was also a significant rain event that took the dam from 75%FSL at the time to 135% FSL (FSL being the water supply level not including flood mitigation). The inflow for that event was about 85% the size of the 1974 flows.
This was at the beginning of a La-nina event that lasted until 2001. The knee jerk reaction then could have been reduce the dam level to 75%. Thankfully, given there were no significant floods arising from that event the suggestion wasn’t made. Had they done so though, the city of Brisbane would have been without a water supply by 2007 (or earlier). As it was the dam dropped from 100% in 2001 to 15.1% in 2007 giving rise to severe water restrictions.
It doesnt take long to transition from La-nina to El-nino and the next rain event is never guaranteed. Those suggesting the dam should have been dropped to 75% FSL before this summer because we were in La-nina conditions have short memories. I pray we are not going to end up regretting the current decision to drop it down to 75%.
But then I guess if you believe its better to risk running a city of several million people out of water rather than risk flooding 20,000 homes once every hundred years or so, who am I to disagree?
Tom Harley says:
“The Queensland Government, I believe, didn’t carry any disaster insurance, (the only state that doesn’t), but relies on the feds to provide disaster funds, so all the reparations will have to come from taxpayers for their (govt) stupidity.”
I think the big issue would be do they have negligence (liability) insurance. A public authority might not but the Dam (damn) operating company might.
So the first thing the authorities are going to do is ensure that emergency calls in off-hours get automatically forwarded to the off-duty decision-makers’ cell phones and/or computers, right?
And not just for this dam, but for all dams? And not just for dams, but for all vital infrastructure where fast decision-making is needed (like nuclear power plants,for instance)?
Never let a good crisis go to waste, right? Right? Hello?
PS: I just posted:
I should have said that underlings should have their bosses’ home phone numbers, etc., and that in situations where an emergency might develop, such as a dam nearing its limit, bosses should be sure to always have their cell phone “live” and on their person. Further, there should be a rule that in the event the boss is unreachable, the underling can act on his own.
I trust this information will be presented to some legal officers at some time in the future.
With the entire Board of the water company in the dock….
What David W writes about forecasting is not correct. The average rainfall in the wet months Jan, Feb & Mar is about four times the dry months of Jul, Aug & Sep with May and Nov about the average of these two periods Apr & Dec slightly higher than the average and Jun & Oct slightly lower than average. It was predicted from a change in the Southern Oscillation index in Oct 2010 than the coming six months would have above average rainfall. Dec 2010 had in many areas of South East Queensland a record rainfall in the period back to 1892 when many records began (about 4 times the average). The Wivenhoe dam was 100% full (FLS) at 31st Dec. There could be no reason that the dam at the begining of Jan (the start of the wet season) should be allowed to exceed 100% particularly as the OSI was still very positive and BOM was predicting at that time above average rainfall until at least May 2011. Yet the dam was 116% full on Friday 7th and there were minimal water releases at the weekend.
People seem to have modelling on their brains, just like the AGW modelling. There is no need to model anything when the evidence from the normal pattern of rainfall is so clear. On any day it did not rain (ie Jan 3, 4 & 5th) or just after water should have been released to clear out some of the excess inflow of December. The heavy rainfall occurred on 10,11 & 12 Jan
The bad flood was on the 12 Jan mainly due to very high water release for safety. There was no rain from 14th to 19th of Jan.
I forgot to mention that the heavy (record) rainfall in December 2010 saturated the ground so higher than normal dam inflow should have been expected in the early days of January. Another point, the actual rainfall over the three heavy rain days in January (combined a little more than the average for the month) was no where near a record nor was the total rainfall for the month ( about double the monthly average or between half and one third of the record monthly rainfall)
I suspect that David W is not an engineer but whether he is or is not he needs to be very careful that he does not breach the Professional Engineers Act (Qld). To provide any engineering service (particularly if being paid by the government or by a private contractor) one needs to be a) registered and b) competent. I have indicated elsewhere that I am a registered engineer.
Hi, I am based in the UK and I watched the events unfold in Australia, it was very seriuos and people did lose everything including their lives. My personal opinion is that a cyclone of that magnitude is going to create some havoc. As to the question “did someone goof” in the water management department, I have no doubt that the investigation will give a yeah or nay. I will watch patiently for the outcome. To cry “politics” in the meantime for a particular point of view is perhaps unhelpful as it reinforces the attitude of distrust. WUWT is a forum, it instigates and welcomes informed discussion, it is a very good way of finding the truth, stay calm and use the grey matter god gave us. Keep well and safe.
Andrew30 says:
March 28, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Changing that ‘Cause’ column would save One Billion dollars of inversors money, even if they spent 170 Million dollars to prove it. Who knows, they might just want to have a bit of a look.
This would be cast by the media as the evil insurance cos who do not want to pay for the flooding caused by global warming.
But the fact is that accountable readings from digital guages were disregarded, a computer program was utilized, figures were doubled, and the homes were flooded by a dam release. If flooding was caused by dam release, insurance cos should not pay. And Australians should be mad at the right people and get the alarmist government out of these abysmal, disasterous water policies. Desalinization plants still cost millions to build here in the US, not billions.
In Victoria:
Wik entry for Wonthaggi desalination plant: “The capital cost for the project was initially estimated to be $2.9 billion in the initial feasibility study, this was later revised to $3.1 billion[18] and then to $3.5 billion. After the winning bidder was announced it was revised to $4 billion.”
Desal plant in El Paso “Constructed at a cost of $87 million”
Don’t forget to add in the price of constructing the windmills that support the desal plant in Victoria, and how dependable that is going to be. This Stockyard Hill Windfarm project nearby miraculously does not require an EES:
“In September 2008 the Minister for Planning determined that the project does not require an Environmental Effects Statement (EES), as the site offers scope to adjust infrastructure to avoid significant adverse environmental, heritage and amenity impacts.”
The Queensland plant cost 1.2 billion, but does that include the cost of renewable energy that has to be part of the package? “The carbon emissions from the desalination plant have been offset with the purchase of renewable energy certificates (RECs). The RECs have been produced by a range of renewable energy sources with the main source being solar hot water system installations. Other sources include solar photovoltaic, hydro and a small amount of wind.”
So in Victoria and Queensland, they have simultaneous flooding and water prices skyrocketing by 65%. Australians need to look at the handling of this dam as a microcosm of AGW drought projections in water management. It’s more like massive mismanagement, complete with computer models, sudden splicing of data sets, and a doubling here and a doubling there.
Key dam strategies for Brisbane among censored data
PARTS of the recently released Queensland flood mitigation manual censored by the Queensland government for “security reasons” happen to contain nearly all the key strategies for Wivenhoe dam, such as the gate settings and water release levels for the days before and during the deluge.
An engineer associated with the construction of Wivenhoe, who examined the figures yesterday, said Wivenhoe’s gate settings for the weekend before the major flood should be closely examined to ensure the high levels of water in the dam on early Monday morning were consistent with the manual’s operations.
SEQWater declined to go into detail about the issues, saying they would be dealt with by the commission of inquiry into the floods.
SEQWater has denied any deviation from the manual or that stability issues with Somerset Dam had any bearing on its operations.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/queensland-floods/key-dam-strategies-for-brisbane-among-censored-data/story-fn7iwx3v-1226001075961
An uncensored version of the 85-page manual, obtained by The Australian, also highlight
Cementafriend your not even close to being correct on a lot of what you posted.
Firstly the dam was back at 100% before this event started and didnt hit 116% until 5pm on 8th January and had begun to fall on 9th January before further heavy rainfall forecast to fall South of the dam. If you even bothered to do a rudimentary check of what happened you would have realised that the dam was drained back to 100% after the December event and was back at 100% by 2nd January in accordance with the drain down guidelines in the operating manual. In fact, on the 6th January when the dam hit 67.25m triggering the event (for the dam operators) the dam was only at 101%. Even at midnight on 7th January it was only at 112%. The dam is used for flood mitigation at lower levels not only in extreme flood events you do realise? In fact are you even familiar with the dam operating manual?
Secondly I’m not providing engineering services for anyone so I dont have to wrry about breaking any laws.
Thirdly, forecasts are nowhere near accurate enough for the type of decision making necessary to moderate releases in the manner that your suggesting they are capable of. During the December event you mentioned earlier, over 600mm of rain was forecast for Brisbane at varying stages but the dam level never exceeded 70m for that event. I’ve no doubt you would have released significant amounts of water for that event (and probably in October also when the dam level hit 69.5m) and flooded hundreds of homes unnecessarily.
Fourth, I’m well aware of the ground saturation. It is what exacerbated the situation in the Lockyer Valley (outside of the Wivenhoe Catchment) where so many lives were lost. If ever there was a scenario that highlighted the danger of releasing water below the catchment it was the flooding in the Lockyer Valley. Any releases were only going to worsen the risk of potentially devastating floods downstream and with the rain forecast to move South, further releases would have been extremely foolhardy.
Fifth, if you believe releasing 50-100,000mL as the event started (from 6th Jan onwards when the dam was at only 101.3%) would have made a difference in the back end of an event where they received a total inflow of over 2.6 million mL (nearly 1 million mL of which came in roughly 24 hours on 11th January) you are deluded. You clearly have zero grasp of the speed and size of the inflows that occurred on the 11th January.
Learn a little more about the event before commenting. Your comments show a high degree of ignorance.
Finally what is your background in dam operations that you believe you know more than the 4 duty engineers (who despite comments posted above were on duty from 6th January onwards). You dont really seem to have a detailed knowlege of the events, the rainfall, the dam operating strategies and the factors that needed to be considered.
Are you perhaps an engineer commenting on a field that is outside your area of expertise (given your comments on breaching the engineers act)? You just seem to me to be another commentator who has had a cursory glance at what happened and because you have a degree or perhaps some letters before your name think that makes you an expert on it. For someone who is portraying themselves in such a manner there are a lot of errors in what your posting.
This whole thread is truly unworthy of this site. I am thoroughly disgusted.
Thanks David for your input above. As I said earlier, especially here at WUWT, we should be sensitive to overly sensationalist articles. The sort of language in the referenced article should set our BS meters at maximum, regardless of the topic at hand.
Always, always, you will be able to go back over a situation and with hindsight make a different judgement as to what should have happened. This doesn’t excuse neglect, or interference. But in many critical situations, a judgement has to be made without immediate access to all the information that will be found afterwards, and more importantly without the time available later.
As has recently been highlighted, “Shit happens”.