Model trumps observation – dam operator caught in fabrication

Stephan says:
March 30, 2011 at 8:48 am
Urkidding:
Tim already told you repeatedly DROUGHT!, and has actually published a paper on this, so expect DROUGHT for Jan 18 2012.
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Looks like you have confused climate and weather.
BTW, in the article you quote Flannery states ”
‘The third phenomena, which Professor Flannery says is the most worrying, is the recurring El Nino weather pattern.
“That’s occurring as the Pacific Ocean warms up, and we’re seeing much longer El Ninos than we’ve seen before and often now back-to-back el Ninos with very little of the La Nina cycle, the flood cycle, in between,” he said.”
The next five or six years will prove interesting.
And, despite all this rain Melbourne’s storages are still only at 54% capacity.

David W;
Everything else not withstanding; The core of the article seems to be that SEQ Water made a claim in their report that a 1 in 2000 year rainfall event caused them to release the water at such a high rate that it caused the flooding.
It is further asserted in the article that no such rainfall event can be substantiated from local weather stations and rain gauges. It is also claimed that SEQ had to double the interpolated rainfall event from what their level gauges implied to get to such a rate. That would be hard to justify under any circumstances I am aware of.
Do you concur that they interpolated from their level gauges, or are you asserting that the weather records support their conclusion and that rain actually did fall at the rate claimed in their report?
Next; do you see any reason’s why they would want to make a claim that rainfall levels were so extraordinarily high. What advantage might they gain by such a claim?
As to the rest; yes, this is a comment board. Some of the posters are more informed than others. Some people make uninformed comments, some make very well informed comments. Other message boards delete comments they disagree with, whether informed or not. Some message boards delete inconvenient questions.
Tony don’t play that; if you want to go on a diatribe about how everyone here is anti-science and so forth; he’ll allow it, as long at you don’t include ad-hominem attacks. So don’t deride the board. You seem emotionally very close to this issue. Might that be clouding your objectivity?
Anyway; if you’d answer the questions about the 1 in 2000 year event to the best of your understanding, I would greatly appreciate it. (Maybe you even want to claim that there’s no such information in the report, I don’t know.)

Treeman is correct. David W almost managed to pass himself off as an independent expert, but for the fact that he carefully avoided critical reference to the passage of time. The panic release of over 650,000 megalitres took place on Tuesday night (Jan 11th) but as Treeman has pointed out above, the flood buffer was already being used up on the previous Friday afternoon. Over that weekend only about 116,000ML/day was being released despite the fact that the river downstream can take 300,000ML without major flooding.
Treeman was right on the spot when I was first to break this story on Jo Nova’s site on Thursday 13th. See http://joannenova.com.au/2011/01/brisbane%e2%80%99s-man-made-flood-peak/
Clearly, just an extra 100,000 ML/day over Sat/Sun/Mon would have reduced the Tuesday flow to 350,000 ML. In fact, there would still have been enough buffer left to leave the Tuesday release at 200,000 ML. And more than 10,000 homes would not have been flooded, 10,000 homes would not have been devalued by 30% (avg of $135,000 ea) or a total loss of $1.35 billion.
The legal position is absolutely clear. The relevant Minister, Stephen Robertson, was in control of a large body of water which clearly falls within the meaning of “a dangerous thing” under the Qld Criminal Code Act 1901. His operating manual, that the engineers were required to comply with, did not provide any scope for pre-emptive action. And because of this the engineers were prevented from taking “all reasonable and practical steps to minimise harm” under their duty of care in respect of that dangerous thing.
Releasing additional water as a flood buffer is used up is very clearly a reasonable and practical step to take to prevent an entirely foreseeable harm.
The fact that Robertson has announced that he will not be standing for the next election, but, contrary to convention, has chosen to remain in his ministerial position, could lead some people to conclude that he is very eager to retain maximum influence over the course of events, including the information flow.
And after more than 15 years of very close exposure to the policy processes in departments under his control, I can provide detailed documentary evidence of a penchant for callous, systematic and willful disregard for the truth.
“The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones” Mark
Anthony.

David W
You say:
“With 100,000mL less in the dam when the larger inflows started to impact from about 4am on Tuesday morning they would have been facing a dam headed for maybe 75-75.5m instead of 76-76.5m. Either situation with the dam headed above 74 m with rapid inflows incoming requires the same response since they do not have a crystal ball at that stage to tell them when those inflows will stop.”
Firstly releasing at 240,000 mL/day from Saturday would have seen 332,000 mL less water in the dam come Tuesday midnight. Releasing 240,000 mL per day from Friday would have seen the difference more like 500,000 mL less water in the dam.
That’s quite a lot of water with a flood buffer of 1.45 million megalitres.
Secondly the larger flows began to impact Wivenhoe levels well before midnight on Sunday. The water in the dam was rising at close to 4M per day. The rate of rise was steady until 3PM Monday by which time the level was at 73M. The rate of increase picked up again at 3am Tuesday and peaked at 74.5M around 3PM Tuesday.
No crystal ball was ever required. Just taking a look outside was enough. Knowing when the inflows might stop is beside the point when an alarming and consistent rate of rise had been observed since Friday. The larger flows impact to which you refer equate to a rise of just 1M at the dam wall when it was almost overflowing! The real impacts happened days earlier and were immediately visible. There was however no attempt to substantially increase releases until Monday.
According to station data I’ve kept, the level in the dam went from 74.5M back to 74M between 3Pm and midnight Tuesday from when it climbed again to almost 75M. by 10am Wednesday. Station data at Jindalee shows a 6PM Wednesday peak. It shows an accelerated rise from midnight Tuesday, through 4am Wednesday from which time it tapered off.
I suggest that substantial releases over the weekend would indeed have made a big difference to the outcome and trust that the Enquiry will look at all data and not models and projections of what might or might not have been.

So you would have ignored all rainfall forecasts which were all showing the heaviest falls would occur below the dam and release water on the weekend on the basis of what? What exactly was telling you on Saturday that their would be an inflow of close to 1 million mL on Monday and a further million on Tuesday with about 30-36 hours in between? If you knew this why didn’t you tell the dam operators?
Frankly I’m amazed. You have a weather forecasting system that correctly predicts extremely rare weather events down to their exact location and rainfall amounts and no one else seems to have heard of it. It must of course be a computer model or forecast I simply havent seen yet and I would love for you to share it. Is it the TALO model perhaps? (take a look outside). Is it your argument that the dam operators should base all their strategy releases for the dam on what is happening outside your window?
Being realistic, I would suggest your strategy of additional releases over the weekend would have put a significant number of lives at risk (which are far more important than the property losses suffered heavy as they were) and would potentially have inundated hundreds of properties well before any actual or forecast rainfall would have indicated it was needed.
They were already releasing at a rate of 100,000mL a day by Saturday afternoon at a time when inflows were at the same level and flows downstream independent of the releases were already increasing. From 9pm Saturday through to 10am Sunday the dam level had dropped from 68.65m to 68.53m and all their forecasts were that the heaviest rainfall from that point forward was going to be below the dam.
I’ve explained already the level of ground saturation below the catchment and the high probability of significant rainfall with the potential for dangerous flash flooding as evidenced by what happened in the Lockyer Valley. This was not forecast to fall in the dams catchment but below it.
You haven’t provided any proof the forecasts were saying anything other than what I’ve told you already. You havent disputed the ground saturation nor the potential impact of very heavy rainfall or the possibility of dangerous flash flooding below the dam. You’ve provided no plausible explanation for how you would have known about the 2 seperate very large inflow events to come other than you looked outside and it was raining.
Please tell me by what possible logic you can fit extra releases into this set of conditions.

David W
You clearly haven’t looked at what I wrote at 10.48 pm. You don’t need forecasts when the the water has been rising at an alarming rate, continues to do so and the dam level is already well into the buffer. This began on Friday.
You say “From 9pm Saturday through to 10am Sunday the dam level had dropped from 68.65m to 68.53m and all their forecasts were that the heaviest rainfall from that point forward was going to be below the dam” Surely a drop of .12M while releasing 100,000mL is evidence alone of an insufficient release? Even if the rain stopped immediately, inflows continue for hours if not days in these circumstances.
My lively-hood is integral to rainfall. I travel between NSW and Brisbane regularly to monitor landscape plantings. During the weeks before, up to and beyond the Brisbane floods I logged into BOM, Weatherzone and other sites each day and several times a day during the worst of it. I don’t recall seeing anything that suggested rainfall would be heavier above or below Wivenhoe. Weatherzone gave a greater than 75% probability of high rainfall for all but a few days of late December and all of January for most of the South East corner. The cells that caused the Toowoomba and Lockyer flash flooding and the cells that caused the rise in Wivenhoe both came from the same direction and had the same potential for rain on everything in their path.
The only accurate forecast is the weather radar showing real time rainfall and direction. Even this is fallible, notably with sudden storm events but with slow moving systems it works a treat. Anything else is opinion based on modelling and we all know what that’s worth!
Blaming forecasting or lack of it for a what is most likely clear cut case of mismanagement is bound to come back to bite SEQ Water. Bureaucrats and politicians have been squabbling about the buffer for years. More recently they have been squabbling about the value of water and the need to keep more of it.
Yes the ground was saturated and yes a bigger release of water earlier would have caused some flooding. It would also have inconveniently cut several bridge crossings below Wivenhoe but in the absence of higher than usual tides and flood peaks from Bremer and Lockyer I suggest that 30% of the buffer could have been released before Monday afternoon. People using these bridges were already on alert.
An earlier inconvenience vs a later catastrophe sounds logical to me! Duckshoving and blaming forecasters is logical only for self preservation!

Ian Mott, sorry I missed the per day on the end of your 100,000mL in your previous post but then I guess I wasn’t imagining someone might rationally suggest they would have released that amount of water.
You do realise that releasing a further 100,000mL a day would have resulted in flows over 3,000m3/sec per day at Mogill from Saturday onwards and 3,500m3/sec from Sunday before you had any possible indication of the 2 major inflow events in the dams, without factoring in any potential heavy rainfall forecast to fall into that area. That gives you only a tiny margin before you start inundating hundreds of homes with the threat of very heavy rain to fall in that area. They were already releasing 1200m3/sec on Saturday and infact by 9am Monday the releases were already at 2000m3/sec. You would have added a further 1200m3/sec to that amount in addition to what was already flowing from catchments below the dam which was in excess of 500m/sec. Would you have given authorities time to give warnings to local communities before these releases, time for evacutations or to prepare for being isolated , time to close bridges and roads? Would you have opened the gates rapidly or at a reasonable speed which was less likely to cause rapid river level rises?
Absolutely no way you could have released anyhwere near that amount without substantial unwarranted risk taking. Easy to make a call after the event when you know where the rain fell. I wonder if you would have been so brave without being pre-armed with such knowlege.
You can try and spin it anyway you like but that is foolish.
No problems with you splitting hairs over the inflows. The 2 major inflows were on Monday (actually starting in the late hours of Sunday) and the second one started in the early hours of Tuesday moring. If “on Tuesday” is not preceise enough for you well so what. The fact that the 11,500m3/sec did not remain at the level all day is immaterial to the decision they had to make when the peak inflow was approaching that level which is the point I was trying to make which you have ignored.
So Treeman you logged on to Weatherzone several times a day. And you think this was enough to get a gauge of what was happening. Many of us from Weatherzone were pretty much on the thread following events minute by minute. I got about 5 hours sleep from Saturday through to Tuesday whilst following events on Weatherzone. I have since been through the event thread 3 or 4 times to get a feel for exactly how things transpired. It is very clear that everyone other than you and Ian were expecting the weather system to move south of the dam.
Provide some evidence that you knew exactly where the rain was going to fall by Saturday morning and maybe I’ll have a little more respect for your views. You, Ian and others who have posted have repeatedly the reality of the forecasts. But worse still you use the forecast to say they should have known the rain was coming but you ignore the part of the forecast regarding where the rain was going to fall. Thats hypocritical.
If you say they should have looked at the rainfall that actually fell only and ignored the forecasts then there is no basis for early releases either. Any rainfall until Tuesday was always going to be comfortably handled by the dam. You therefore have no justification for early releases until Tuesday unless you factor in rain forecast to fall and you want to ignore what those forecasts were saying except the part which fits in with your preconceived and clearly politically motivated ideas. Again hypocritical.

Nice try, David W, but but you again failed to provide essential information that puts your numbers in perspective. The total peak flood flow from the Tues/Wed panic release was over 10,000 cumecs, of which 8,000 was from the Wivenhoe branch and just 2,000 from the Bremmer. So your claim that an additional 100,000 ML/day (1157 cumecs) of pre-release would have caused unacceptable flooding is plain spurious.
Indeed, the 3,000 to 3,500 cumec flow figure you claim would have been unacceptable as a pre-release was the very same figure that flows were reduced to THE DAY AFTER THE PANIC DISCHARGE. This 3,500 cumecs flow figure is the upper limit of a minor flood. And the fact that it is only 1/3rd of the panic release major flood level merely highlights your incapacity to make proportionate responses to the data.
And spare us the cognitive cull-de-sac of where the heavy rain was forecast for. At any one point in the decision chain the major variable was not from the forecast but rather, the falls that had already taken place in the catchment but had not yet flowed to the lower dam. From the moment the flood buffer began to be used up on Friday, it was entirely foreseeable that the remaining buffer may not be enough. By Saturday there had already been enough rain in the upper catchment to prompt a fierce debate within SEQWater over the need for additional pre-releases.
The naysayers didn’t actually win the argument, they just fell back on the negligent prescriptions in Minister Robertson’s operating manual that only allowed a staged increase in releases AFTER THE FACT. And it is testimony to your ignorance that one must state that action after the fact is the very antithesis of a duty of care, to take all reasonable and practical steps to prevent entirely foreseeable harm.
So if you would care to front up to a court with your hair splitting over where the forecast predicted the most intense rain then be my guest. But the normal range of variation between the predicted and actual location of a storm event is greater than was the case in this instance and there is no excuse for operating on any finer scale.
You claim to be a non-Labor voter and a person impacted by the flood and to not be involved in the decision making process in any way. But all you have offered here are excuses for what was done. And as you have done so under a pseudonym we have no way of testing the veracity of your claimed personna.
And as for your claim of political bias on my part, you should read through some of the court cases initiated by Robertson’s department to get a handle on their relationship with the truth, http://www.propertyrightsaustralia.org/ Officers guilty of perjury, fabrication of evidence, the Director General guilty of contempt of court, the list goes on. Read this stuff and then tell me these people are not capable of fabricating a defence in gross negligence.

But you have repeatedly said you wanted to release 100,000mL a day on Saturday and Sunday. Please provide proof that the inflows into the dam at that point were going to generate the requirement for the peak release on Tuesday.
You have ignored the fact your releases would put the flow at 3,500m3/sec before taking into account any rain that might fall into that area. You have ignored the fact that Lockyer Valley provides you with a clear example of the type of rainfall that was being forecast below the catchment.
You would have released the water and everyone would have had to pray to god that the weather forecasts were not correct.
Rainfall and river flow data from Saturday and Sunday would be handy to prove your case that inflows and rainfall on those days were sufficient to begin larger releases from Saturday. Given the dam level was either stable or falling slightly for a large part of Saturday and Sunday on the back of releases in the 1200m3/sec range to 1400m3/sec range I cant see how you could assert on ether Saturday or Sunday that flows into the dam at that point were going to require the Tuesday release.
When increased inflows into the dam did start occurring on Sunday afternoon going into Monday they responded by increasing the release rate to 2700m3/sec by 8pm Monday after taking the appropriate precautions to ensure people downstream were suitably notified and the necessary roads and bridges closed. They then commenced opening the gates at about 2am Monday morning at a rate that didnt cause unnecessarily rapid and life threatening river and creek level rises downstream.
These increased inflows started to become apparent at about 2-3pm on Sunday. It would have been at least another 4-6 hours before the scale of those inflows reached a magnitude which would indicate the need to increase the release rate to levels you’ve suggested (levels they reached by 8pm Monday anyway when conditions actually warranted it) as they certainly wouldnt start emptying the dam based on a single hours inflow. This takes you to around 6-8pm at night. As I’ve said above, they then have to make the appropriate notifications to councils who have to notify affected residents before releasing because given conditions downstream, weather forecast and obseervations of weather conditions, their was a very high risk of flash flooding and loss of life. The release rate then started increasing from about 2am on the Monday morning to hit the 2700m3/sec rate by 8pm. This release rate combined with downstream flows already put them at 3500m3/sec without taking into account any further falls over the area that the water was being released into.
In fact with this rate of release even the largest inflow of Monday was not going to put the dam level over 74 meters which is the trigger point for the bigger releases that occurred on Tuesday.
You have made claims but not provided a single peice of proof that conditions on either Saturday or Sunday indicated the need for a higher release rate.
You use words like “panic discharge” to falsely convey things were out of control when in fact the releases on Tuesday were well controlled and in line with operational procedure so much so that the peak discharge was less than 65% of the peak inflow. But you would have done a “panic discharge” on Saturday and Sunday without any proof it was needed.
You want the dam to 100% mitigate a 1 in 100 to 1 in 200 year flood event at the cost of not using the flood mitigation capacity at all for lower level events. This is far from a practical approach. Your approach would potentially have flooded hundreds of properties in October and December 2010 without any reason to do so. I cant imagine what you would have done in if you were in charge in 1999 where inflows approached 1974 levels but the Brisbane River never exceeded 1.7m due to the same strategy of limited releases used early in the event.
“By Saturday there had already been enough rain in the upper catchment to prompt a fierce debate within SEQWater over the need for additional pre-releases.”
Provide proof of this. And a newspaper reporter saying so is not proof.