NORTH QUEENSLAND
ENGINEERING IN THE TROPICS
MICHAEL KERR MAYOR OF DOUGLAS
Tropical wet season deluges that throw debris and hills of mud onto our roads is an annual fixture in our little slice of paradise. Douglas Shire – famous for being where the Daintree Rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef – has a knack for presenting a unique set of engineering challenges for council staff. Since 2017, our talented engineers have managed almost $30 million worth of disaster recovery projects consisting of significant landslips, road improvements and bank stabilisations. And I can assure you, these severe weather events do not discriminate. From our tourist town of Port Douglas, to the rural sugarcane growing areas surrounding Mossman, to the untouched World-Heritage rainforest north of the Daintree River – monsoonal rainfall has certainly left its mark on our region in the past few years. In 2018, Murphy Street in Port Douglas, also known as ‘Millionaires Row’, suffered three significant landslips during a torrential downpour which dropped almost 600mm in one night, resulting in the removal of more than 1500 cubic metres of debris from the street. Immediate clearing works and
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View of Port Douglas taken from the Coral Sea off the coast of Rex Smeal Park.
temporary stabilisation of the hillslope were required before geotechnical engineers could finalise a long-term solution. Fast forward to 2021, our council crews and contractors have completed a fantastic $3.1 million repair job at the site, successfully capping off two years of road repairs, drainage improvements and slope stabilisation. The project was jointly funded by the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA). I know the community has been blown away by the professionalism and quality shown by crews. The project was no easy feat. Hundreds of soil nails were drilled into the hill slope, followed by mesh covering which became the target of a specialised cannon shooting seeds and growth mixture to revegetate the hill slope. We also planted more than 200 plants on the street to beautify the area – an important part of the process for our tourist town. The work completed here is nothing short of tremendous
and gave our community a great deal of confidence heading into the 2020/21 La Nina wet season. What was even more impressive, it was just one of many significant repairs our small Council team has completed in recent years. The repair of a 60-metre high landslip in the Upper Daintree region and the re-building of a large section of road that fell away on the Alexandra Range in the heart of the Daintree Rainforest were among other key disaster recovery projects completed. Our Council staff are now embarking on $10 million drainage and pavement upgrades to remote unsealed roads north of Cape Tribulation, up to areas around Wujal Wujal. Sections of the road are vulnerable to seasonal flooding and can leave our northern communities isolated. Not to mention our adventure-seeking tourists can get stuck. With a resident population of just over 12,000 people, Douglas Shire Council draws on a relatively small rate base and minimal alternative revenue streams to maintain infrastructure for our
ENGINEERING FOR PUBLIC WORKS | MARCH 2021
