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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Oh and just for clarification for those unfamiliar with the dam in question.
When you hear about the dam being at 100%, this is the water supply level of the dam which is 1.165 million mL. This water is used to supply a city of 2 million people with their water and came close to running dry in 2007 when it had less than a years supply remaining.
In ADDITION to this the dam has a further 1.45 million mL flood mitigation capacity taking its total capacity up to just over 2.6 million mL or 225%. This flood mitigation capacity is equal to the total inflow from the 1974 flood event which devastated Brisbane.
On the 6th January the dam held 1.165 million mL and still had its full flood mitigation capacity available.
David W, don’t forget to mention to readers that the dam is kept at 100% as a matter of policy to keep the desal plant closed:
“The government’s longstanding policy of operating Wivenhoe at 100 per cent full supply level, with 1,150,000 megalitres of water for urban use (instead of a lower volume to give the dam a larger buffer in addition to its 1,450,000MG of capacity for flood storage) is now highly controversial.
The policy saves money on the operation of a new and troubled desalination plant at Tugun on the Gold Coast.
It is a policy that some regard as folly from a public safety perspective, particularly given the change to La Nina, the risk of further extreme rainfall and cyclones this wet season.”
“Fraser said the agenda was to save money on water costs (which the government had been passing on to consumers), and the largest savings were achieved by keeping Wivenhoe Dam at full supply level, and shutting down those parts of the Water Grid such as the new desalination plant at Tugun.”
If you’re a UQ alumni, there is a panel discussion happening at the university on the 13th April on the issues around SEQ, Water Infrastructure and Climate Change.
The date is the 13th April. Would be an interesting discussion, though I assume heavily slanted to the pr0-AGW point of view.
Link here: UQ Alumni Lunch Lectures
Engineer’s emails reveal Wivenhoe Dam releases too little, too late
“According to figures from Wivenhoe’s operator, SEQWater, the dam’s capacity went from 106 per cent full on the morning of Friday, January 7, to 148 per cent full on the morning of Monday, January 10, due to the limited weekend releases. Experts have said this severely compromised the dam’s ability to store additional runoff.”
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/floodrelief/engineers-emails-reveal-wivenhoe-dam-releases-too-little-too-late/story-fn7ik2te-1225992101146#ixzz1I2E6ieio
David W: I was in Toowoomba when the event occurred. The rain was amazing, it of course ran down to the Lockyer valley etc and eventually reached the dams. The point is the Bligh government was attached to Tim Flannery’s concept of “Global Warming by human C02” and that you (QLD), were in for a long haul drought. So the SEQ water was indoctrinated to believe by order, and did not release water. You, sir, and your ideas caused death and millions of dollars of cost and your are scared shitless of what Suncorp, and other insurance companies in Australia etc., could do with this site and The Australian’s information. The fact is the Bligh Government believes profoundly in AGW and it’s beginning to cost Australia dearly. ie: Will your government build more dams to prevent this in the future? Answer = NO, hurts green and ignorant labor votes. BTW I used to vote Labor. No More.
Zeke: It was supposed to be released BEFORE but they did not because of the AGW agenda, that is the point.
David W this is graph of current up to date temps from a warmist site
http://processtrends.com/images/RClimate_UAH_Ch5_latest.png
Do you see any trend?
Yes, dam operators filled it up until the last moment, and then released it. One insurance investigation states:
“Further on the report, it claims that the properties on the Ipswich area were affected from the Brisbane River flooding. Included in the report too are the city gauge that went as high as 4.5m on January 13 at around 2 am. This was after 30 hours when operators from Wivenhoe released about 9000 cubic meters per second of the dam.”
The purpose of the Wivenhoe dam was to prevent flooding, according to Aus Andrew Bolt; and that should be the first priority of all dams. The reckless endangerment by the government in running them full in a wet season based on AGW drought models has resulted in destruction and great loss, perhaps not limited to Queensland .
Zeke the Sneak says:
March 29, 2011 at 9:41 pm
The purpose of the Wivenhoe dam was to prevent flooding, according to Aus Andrew Bolt; and that should be the first priority of all dams.
============================================================
If that were the case all dams would be kept empty “just in case”.
Apart from being Australia’s leading climate expert and nuclear expert, is Bolt now our leading hydrologist?
Stephan says:
March 29, 2011 at 8:42 pm
David W this is graph of current up to date temps from a warmist site
http://processtrends.com/images/RClimate_UAH_Ch5_latest.png
Do you see any trend?
==========================================================
Astute observation Stephan, but do you think 8 years is long enough to define a trend?
Look here : http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
Cheers.
These are worth a look. What Warmists will do to ‘prove’ their misguided views.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/03/there-he-goes-again-mann-claims-his.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/operator-of-dam-invented-rain-data/story-e6frg6nf-1226028379093
http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/25/arctic-ice-thickness-makes-a-huge-gain-global-warming-freezes-more-ice/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/28/al-gores-seawater-swindle/
[snip . . ad hom]
Since I actually work for an insurer I am probably not “scared [snip . . profanity is frowned on here]” about being the company I work for being sued.
Zeke, the dam went to 148% not because they failed to release water but rather because inflow rates into the dam reached 10,000m3/sec and nearly 750,000 mL of water fowed into the dam. They were releasing in excess 2000m3/sec by 9am on the Monday morning which is considerably more than the peak flow on the Lockyer River below the catchment where so many lives were lost. [you may wish to use consistent units of measurement to make your point more clearly]
Who are these “experts” that say the limited weekend releases compromised the dams ability to store additional runoff. Its about time they supplied some specific details starting with what was actually released on that weekend, what they think should have been released, what were the weather forecasts and ground saturation conditions below the dam at the time they would have released and exactly how they believe that release would have altered the decision to be made on Tuesday 11th January.
I refuse to respond to any more idiotic posts on these forums until you guys demonstrate that you’ve actually gone out and learnt something about what actually happened.
Ahh so you snipped “scared….” in my post but left it in Stephans post. Are profanities only frowned upon if some people use them?
Your also happy to allow Stephan ad hom attacks on me as he did earlier in this thread with “QLD Government troll” but then you snip mine which was probably more accurate given some of his pointed personal posts against me which were clearly made out of ignorance. It seems ad homs are ok for some posters but not for others.
I’m now done with this blog. You have some good posters here and I will remain forever a climate change sceptic but you are so far off the mark with this topic and your handling off it I can no longer trust you. It makes me very sad as it is like losing a friend.
[Give me a link to the comment in question and I’ll review it – MikeL]
Here is a few observations made from being on the ground in South East Queensland.
Blind Freddy would have known the Brisbane River catchment was going to get a flogging.
In the week or so earlier, a rain depression flooded the Fitzroy River catchment and Rockhampton, Emerald, and other towns went under in record floods.
This rain depression was heading south, you could observe this on the Gympie weather radar, and the intensity of the rain had not diminished.
Next the Burnett River catchment got a flogging and Bundaberg went under.
Next, a bit further south, the Mary River copped it and Maryborough and Gympie went under.
At this stage, it was pretty obvious the Brisbane River catchment was going to get the same as the rain had not eased up.
The water in the dam should have been released days before the depression got so far south, and brought back down to the 40% level (drinking water level) as was recommended when the dam was first built. (Over the years they changed the rules)
SEQ Water took the punt and held on to $500Million worth of saleable water and hoped the rain would go away, but it didn’t.
End of story.
David W
Anthony has merely posted the Hedley Thomas article. Your umbrage with WUWT is misplaced. Further your assessment of the events culminating in the Brisbane floods is flawed. Blind freddie could see that heavy rain was on the way and that the releases from Wivenhoe were insufficient over the weekend. The same can be said for the bureaucratic duck shoving which you you seem to be defending. You should think twice before grandstanding at WUWT. http://joannenova.com.au/2011/01/brisbane’s-man-made-flood-peak/#comments
@DavidW
Whilst I have appreciated your technical input, I havent appreciated your attacks on the ethos of the BLog and indeed it makse me suspicious of your posts in equal measure to your “suspicions” of the Blog.
Whether you or I or anyone else like this, people are entitled to their opinions (however wide of the mark they may be).
On topic, the Key questions for me is did the “2000 year flood” data comments alleged actually take place, what was that based on statistically (as I can find nothing to support that view). And more importantly did these “modelled” conclusions prior to the event and during it, contribute to policy decisions that worsened the event.
That to me is the crux of the issue here, the technical data contributes greatly to that assessment, however the questions do need to be fully addressed in the public domain ,to ensure that this was not the case. In that sense unless you are privvy to the internal contemporaneous information, as that decision making was occurring, then however technically valid your information is (and I do not doubt it). Then you are in no better position to speculate on this matter than any of the other posters.
The key points still stand and it comes down to either the Australian has evidence to support their allegations or they do not. If they do not I would imagine legal action will likely ensue (almost inevitable I would countenance given the potential public liability issues that may arise).
Indeed another poster has posted another link, to a further news organisation, making supportive statements to “The Australian” position based apparrently on access to internal emails.
In Summary knock it off with the attacks on the Site as the site is blameless in re-reporting this issue. You may be correct in YOUR assessment of the realities of what took place (conversely you may not). However that does not render Anthony or the site wrong in any way for covering the story. Further Unlike other Blogs your and other posters views, running counter to the flow of other responses have not (nor should they ever be) edited out or removed. Try that on a number of notable other sites and see how far it gets you.
Finally thank you for your most valuable information, but stop slagging the Blog off and save your “disgust” for those who should genuinely warrant such displeasure Not Watts!!
Chris in Hervey Bay says:
March 30, 2011 at 1:58 am
And Treeman:
At this stage, it was pretty obvious the Brisbane River catchment was going to get the same as the rain had not eased up.
===========================================================
If it was so obvious, why didn’t you tell anyone?
I’m sure all the experts would love to hear your forecasts.
BTW whats the weather going to be on 18 Jan 2012?: just in case we have to prepare for another catastrophe.
They knew it, and chose to ignore it.
‘urkidding’ – it was obvious to everyone, including me when I drove down the Bruce Highway on the Friday night and noticed the highway was within inches of being cut at Caboolture, yet extremely heavy rain had already been forecast for Tuesday/Wednesday of the following week. The whole place was already at risk of flooding and more was known to be coming.
The point is that the dam releases across the weekend were not high enough given the widely-known and reported intense rain event about to make its way over the Brisbane River catchments. For whatever reason, the Dam operators were caught short come Tuesday morning when the deluge really hit.
You might also be interested to know that many people on the weatheraction site correctly predicted what was to happen in the Toowoomba/Grantham area hours before it happened, but were mostly unable to get the warning out.
I’ll be happy to make a forecast for 18 Jan 2012 on the 15th Jan 2012. That’s what we are talking about here.
Treeman,
All the avid posters on WUWT are united in their belief that AGW is not happening. The reasons are wide and varied but all get back to that word “Skepticism”. It may be in regard to the theory, or they believe the data is “adjusted’, the credibility of researchers/scientists, or they just don’t like the side of politics they think it comes from. Fair enough, everyone is entitled to an opinion.
But what we have here is an article written by a person who freely admits he has no qualification or experience in the field, submitted to a reporter who is equally qualified in the field and known for his political views and published in a newspaper renowned for its right wing bias, looking for any opportunity to attack an ALP Government.
What happened to all that critical analysis you apply to the AGW debate. Every last word was taken as gospel, no questions asked, because it suited you.
And Anthony didn’t just merely post the article. He made the comment “Heads should roll over this”. Then everybody joined in the fun.
Was this a “Momentary Lapse of Skepticism”?
The facts are that the Wivenhoe Dam was at 106% on Friday 7th January. Extracts from SEQ Water Media releases as follows:
MEDIA RELEASE – 8 JANUARY 2011 “At Wivenhoe Dam, all five gates are now open. Releases are expected to reach around 100,000 megalitres a day by this afternoon. ”
MEDIA RELEASE – 9 JANUARY 2011″ At Wivenhoe Dam, releases commenced during the evening of Thursday 6 January 2011, with all five gates opened by Saturday 8 January 2011. Releases have reached around 116,000 megalitres a day”
By Monday the dam had reached 145% . Clearly the releases were not enough!
MEDIA RELEASE – 10 JANUARY 2011 “Although releases are being made, large quantities of water continue to flow into the dams. Water is being held back in order to manage impacts downstream and allow for other inflows from urban runoff, the Lockyer and Bremer Rivers to subside. Overnight, Fernvale and Mt Crosby Weir Bridges together with a number of local roads became inundated. They joined the others already impacted, including Twin Bridges, Savages Crossing, Burtons Bridge, Kholo Bridge and Colleges Crossing. In order to relieve the quickly filling flood storage compartment, and with more rain forecast, controlled releases from the dam have been increased today from 116,000 megalitres per day to 172,000 megalitres per day. Further increases to the release rate are planned, to approximately 240,000 megalitres per day by midnight.”
David W. Again blind freddie can see that the increased release of 240 megalitres per day by midnight on 10th January was two days too late. The impact of the increased release hit Brisbane around 36 hours later, the precise time that the flood peaked. Some people suggest that only with the wisdom of hindsight would the Dam managers have done things differently but I beg to differ and have good reason to do so. Michael O’Brien has touched a nerve and I suggest there will be a few more before this is all over.
You cannot attack Joe Romm for not checking before posting a story and then do exactly the same thing. In fact I notified Anthony of Joe’s pathetic reporting on the Berkeley data issue and quite rightly Anthony pulled him up on putting it up without checking first. Good stuff.
Now 1 week later Anthony has done exactly the same thing on the dams issue. He has posted what someone else told him clearly without making any attempt to verify it. How is this any different to the rubbish Joe pulled. The weather reports are available as is information on how accurate those reports are. Further there is a report that details every single aspect of this event in detail in the public domain. There is also an event thread at weatherzone.com.au that you can access that gives a minute by minute account of every single detail of the weather event (hundreds of pages of obrservations were made during the event that I spent many sleep deprived hours following).
I have spent several hundred hours repeatedly pouring over this data before forming a solid opinion and yet there are people here who wish to damn the duty engineers of the dam who have clearly only taken a cursory look at this information and then take ad hom shots at me for my position.
Please spare me the weather report rubbish. I have followed every severe weather event in SE QLD for a number of years. I have a keen interest in severe weather, climate change and funnily enough dams and rivers. I know what the forecasts were for each model adn each ensemble in this event and what those forecasts were at various times during the event and for previous events and what forecasts were provided to the dam operators. I also know how accurate those models were for this event and for previous rainfall events in SE QLD. It is quite clear from the comments posted here others are not even close to being in full possession of the facts, yet they wish to sit in judgement of those who have taken the time to fully acquaint themselves with the data.
You cant heavily criticise others for posting stuff without checking and then do the same and not expect me to label you hypocritical. What makes it worse in this instance was this post was a personal attack against the integrity of highly experienced professionals who do this aspect of their work without pay and seemingly without any recognition.
People continue to post without checking their facts. Yes sorry but I continue to be outraged. You can check any other post I’ve made on this blog outside of this thread and I’ve always supported Anthony’s position on climate change issues but now I strongly disagree on this one not just with what has been posted but how and why it was posted you suddenly find me suspicious.
And you wonder why I’m upset about it.
Oh and if you check the story on Joe Romm’s odious blog on the Berkeley temperature data you will find one of my posts ripping into him on his misreporting of that story (subsequent posts were moderated out – fortunately something that doesnt happen here).
Urkidding:
Tim already told you repeatedly DROUGHT!, and has actually published a paper on this, so expect DROUGHT for Jan 18 2012. BTW Tim Flannery LOL
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1389858.htm
Here are Tim Flannery articles:
http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/105ns_001.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1389858.htm
Maybe WUWT should “save” these webpages for posterity, before they are removed
re drought.
JohnB says:
March 28, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Federally, Julia and her bunch are on life support and showing no brain activity. If we didn’t have laws against euthanasia someone would pull the plug. Either way, the current government doesn’t have long to live. After that we’ll pass around the hat and send her to somewhere she’ll be appreciated, like Britain. 🙂
No John. You keep her! You elected her and her like, don’t blame us! We had 10 years of her sort with Blair (aka B liar) and Brown and have a t last got rid of them. When you had the chance to get rid of her you didn’t take it! She’s all yours.