Raise A Glass To Council Engineers

from Engineering for Public Works - Issue 25, March 2022

Book Review, The Promise of the City

Luke Tanner, Manager Works, Goondiwindi Regional Council

Andrew Leach, Coordinator Development Services / EA Engineering, Goondiwindi Regional Council

Dion Jones, Director Engineering Services, Goondiwindi Regional Council

The Queensland regional centre of Goondiwindi is protected by a levee bank, now stretching to approximately 21km, which has protected the town since the late 1950’s. In 2021 the bank again protected its community from widespread flooding a number of times including two occasions where the Macintyre river reached levels within 240mm of the record 2011 flood.

Bill McNulty - Foreman

The Goondiwindi Region is a local government area located in the Darling Downs of southeast Queensland. The region encompasses townships from Texas in the east, through Inglewood, Yelarbon, Goondiwindi, Toobeah and Talwood to the west, including many more small rural communities in between. The region’s main town centre, Goondiwindi, is situated 350 kilometres west of Brisbane and sits proudly on the banks of the Macintyre River, which delineates the Queensland / New South Wales border.

The Macintyre River forms part of the Border Rivers catchment and is one of the northern-most catchments in the Murray – Darling Basin. It begins on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range in Northern New South Wales before the Dumaresq River and Macintyre Brook join into it just upstream of Goondiwindi and it continues running westward, gradually merging with other streams to become the Barwon River on the floodplains upstream of Mungindi, then turning southwest back into New South Wales.

Water – a blessing and a burden

The ‘Gundi Windi Pastoral Company’ was established in the 1840s on the banks of the Macintyre River, where the Goondiwindi township now sits, for its rich and fertile farming soil. Goondiwindi is now a major centre for agriculture, producing a range of crops and fibres, and is an integral point of convergence of five major highways servicing Queensland and the southern states.

Save for times of exceptionally harsh drought, the access to such an abundance of water has long been a blessing and a burden for Goondiwindi. Since its establishment in the 1840s, the town has experienced a series of major floods including in 1890, 1921, 1950, 1953, 1954, 1955 and again in 1956, when the river rose over 10 metres, causing major damage in the town and district on four occasions in January and

Vernon Redmond - Engineer

Pontoon - In Flood Pontoon - Normal

Railway Hotel In Flood - 1921

February 1956 and once again in June.

The levee plan

Following three consecutive floods in 1956, Council’s Engineer, Vern Redmond and his Foreman, Bill McNulty, began marking the flood levels on trees with an axe, sometimes heading out after working all day, staying out until 2 am with a torch and a small rowboat. The plan was to build a levee bank higher than any markings on the trees. Naturally, there was great debate around the viability of the levee bank and its effect on dwellings and property downstream. Vern and Bill had the unenviable task of advising the property owners that they would need to shift or remove their dwellings. Local folklore tells of arguments and fights in the pubs, including Council officers bailed up in hotels on more than one occasion. There is even a story that someone threatened to blow up the levee bank.

The levee bank was eventually built in 1956, at a cost to Council and the community of 57,000 pounds.

Put to the test

The levee bank’s first big test was in 1976, when the Macintyre reached a record height (at the time) of 10.48m, but did not enter the town.

The levee bank was tested again in 2011, when the river reached its highest level on record - 10.64m. There was some isolated seepage through the bank and locations with the potential to overtop the bank to the west of the main town area, but Council had sufficient heavy equipment on hand to be able to stop or control the seepage and raise any low areas.

Cr Kearney, chair of the Local Disaster Management Group, has previously been quoted as saying: “In the 2011 flood, it would have required twice the volume of water that was in the system at the time to top the levee. So even though it was getting close, we needed a hell of a lot more water to top the levee.”

Two more floods in March and December 2021 were predicted to threaten, but did not eventually exceed, the record height of 10.64m. The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) recorded the river’s peaks at 10.4m and 10.46m respectively.

The levee today

Over the years, the levee bank has been extended to a total length of approximately 21km encircling the majority of the township before petering out onto what classifies as high ground on the floodplain. Goondiwindi Regional Council provides for the upkeep and maintenance of the levee bank with assistance from external funding programs. Council conducts an annual inspection program along with conducting regular surveys of the levee bank crest height to ensure the integrity of the levee is maintained.

During every major flood event, there is always the potential for the river to overtop the town’s levee bank, or contribute to small minor failures in the structure. Council is responsible for the integrity of the levee and rosters staff on rotating shifts, 24 hours a day until the threat has subsided. Council staff patrol and monitor the entire length of the levee bank on foot, on ATVs and in utilities, operating flood pumps to pump local stormwater and any seepage out of the levee area and conducting spot repairs should any signs of weakness appear in the levee.

As a result of some of the large flows in the Macintyre over the last couple of years, after years of drought, Council is taking this opportunity to upskill newer staff members on the levee and associated flood gates and pumps, and flood events in general, and to also further enhance and refine our processes and procedures.

70 years of protection

Goondiwindi has two prominent monuments that sit proudly on either side of the town’s old bridge, on the northern bank of the mighty Macintyre River. One is in honour of the famous ‘Goondiwindi Grey’; the other is a large, steel, abstract structure with the numbers 1-9-5-6 wrapped around the town’s very own ‘Tree of Knowledge’. For more than a century, townsfolk have gathered at the Tree of Knowledge each time a flood event has occurred. Aptly named, as locals would share their knowledge of river heights further upstream to assist in predicting the peak height of the Macintyre.

Although we now have digital river height forecast technology in the palms of our hands, the people of Goondiwindi still gather at the Tree of Knowledge and marvel. Not only at the speed and volume of water coming downstream, they look on in wonderment that nearly 70 years ago, two Council workers rowed out into the flood waters in the middle of the night, armed with nothing but a torch, an axe and a vision. A vision of a levee bank protecting the town of Goondiwindi from being inundated by floodwaters again.

Cr Kearney has a saying he likes to use to remind us: “Gunsynd put Goondiwindi on the map - and our levee has kept it there”.