Rehabilitation for Bell Junction
DUBBO REGIONAL COUNCIL has an environmental disaster on its hands and it could get catastrophically worse unless something’s done before the next flood.
Jim and Pam Whillock have seen acres of their Bell Junction property ripped off by raging floodwaters, that country collapsing into the river in the past 20 years.
But nothing prepared them for the recent flood, which has ripped away giant sections of their Bell Riverbank frontage.
The unstable cliffs are so spectacular they could be listed as an international tourist attraction if there was easy access to the property.
They believe the massive erosion was caused by a chain of events beginning in the 1990s, when the much-maligned but stabilising willows were ripped out along a stretch of the Bell, but not replaced with any riverbank stabilising native species.
The first high water that came along started undermining the formerly balanced ecosystem, and the rest is history.
Low weirs were put in at a cost of millions of dollars, they believe it exacerbated the problem, pushing torrent of water straight at their bend in the river just before the Bell rushed into the Macquarie.
The only shining light is this week’s visit from landscape repair guru Peter Andrews, who believes he can rehabilitate that section of river easily, simply and cheaply just by making minimal interventions and then letting nature, the natural processes, do the rest.
“This country ran itself beautifully for millions of years before we stuffed it up,” Mr Andrews told about 30 people on Tuesday evening as they gathered at the Bell Junction.
He started his presentation by asking 12 questions, the answers to which he says should be understood before people can grasp the fundamentals that underpin the functions of the landscape.
“If you don’t know how it all works, then how can you fix it – this is why the engineers and scientists have been coming up with the wrong solutions – they don’t understand why the problems they’ve helped created have happened in the first place,” he said.
1. What are the free energies that run any farm? Water.
2. How do I assess basic farm production? The conversion of sunlight to organic matter.
3. What is the most available and pure water on any farm? Dew.
4. What powers a cyclone, typhoon, tornado or a high and low pressure system? The change of the state of water from a gas to a liquid.
5. How does the landscape maintain balance? Edible and inedible plants while growing.
6. Does salt rise? No, gravity holds it down – it will only rise if pushed.
7. Are water tables in some cases bad? Never – if they are managed correctly.
8. What would you consider your soil similar to when in human industry? Factories – the soil is the factory floor and the sunlight is the power.
9. What are the three basic functions of plants? A) they act as solar powered air conditioners, B) they work as solar powered pumps and C) They’re solar powered processing factories delivering compounds to the topsoil – humans have millions of compounds in their bodies and we need plants to deliver those compounds into our food supply from the soil.
10. How much can a tree contribute to any farm? See answers to Q9.
11. What is the environmental progression of a down slope of landscapes? Forestry to aquaculture.
12.Can you imagine a scientific technology that could manage the heat from the sun? There isn’t one, that can only be managed by plants and water.
Most people who work in the natural Resource Management (NRM) space use slick powerpoint presentation and reams of confusing scientific data to justify their arguments – Peter Andrews’ approach couldn’t be further from that method.
He dug a contour along a slope leading down to the Bell junction boat ramp and started tipping buckets of water into the “headwaters” of his landscape model, explaining how you need the correct sequences in any landscape to prevent water building up into an erodible force.
Dubbo Regional Council administrator Michael Kneipp, a long time Wellington local, is keen to see the Bell junction erosion fixed.
He said the presentation of “soft engineering” to address landscape problems need to be looked at.
“We’re certainly interested, soft engineering is a growing area,” Mr Kneipp said.
“We’ve got staff here tonight looking at is as well and it is very much a long term thing.
“The current erosion that’s taken place here, as well as robbing Jim of probably five hectares, it’s eventually going to end up as a fairly significant cost in terms of the low-level bridge so something needs to be done about that,” he said.
He said he’s keen to learn more about how Peter Andrews proposes to fix the erosive force at the junction.
“Peter’s certainly a different character … he’s got the backing of people like Gerry Harvey and others and he’s shown that he can change the landscape to retain water in it even during dry time, but his delivery style’s very unconventional,” Mr Kneipp said.
He flagged an interest in visiting one of the properties where Andrews’ Natural Sequence Farming (NSF) methods have been working, taking council staff to hear first-hand from scientists researching the projects how that system could be applied to the Bell Junction.
After the presentation it was a drive around a few corners to get to the eroded cliffs on the Whillock’s property, which is just a stone’s throw away from the Junction if you could make that trek direct.
While everyone who’s looked at a rehabilitation project in this area starts in the low millions for costings and quickly works up, Peter Andrews thinks it’s a straightforward job that wouldn’t cost much money in the scheme of things, he just wants the authorities to give him permission to start, and do it his way.
“The way they’ve been doing it caused this problem and all their solutions aren’t working, you can see they’ve spent many millions of dollars just to make it worse,” Mr Andrews said.
“We need the powers that be to admit they’ve been getting it wrong – the evidence shows that.
“The real crime will be if they keep doing the same thing in the future when they know they’ve been doing it wrong up until now,” he said.
“The only shining light is this week’s visit from landscape repair guru Peter Andrews, who believes he can rehabilitate that section of river easily, simply and cheaply just by making minimal interventions and then letting nature, the natural processes, do the rest.