‘Far-fetched’ to foresee Brisbane floods: court

IT WAS “far-fetched and fanciful” to believe that engineers could have foreseen the Brisbane floods and made water releases to relieve the deluge, a court has heard.

Two Queensland water authorities have appealed against a landmark decision in which a group of engineers were found to have failed to make releases from the Wivenhoe and Somerset dams during the 2011 crisis.

In 2019, Supreme Court Justice Robert Beech-Jones delivered a scathing decision in which four engineers were found to have failed in their duties which resulted in 23,000 properties in Brisbane and Ipswich being inundated.

More than 6800 flood victims took part in the class action, with more than $440m in compensation set to be paid out by SunWater and the Queensland government.

State-owned dam operator Seqwater was also found liable.

Seqwater and SunWater have appealed to the NSW Court of Appeal where they are arguing their engineers could not have foreseen the major flooding across southeast Queensland in January, 2011, with the hearing expected to last 12 days.

Barrister Jeremy Stoljar, acting for Seqwater, said the engineer had received a directive to keep the dam’s gates closed on January 2 and there was little to no rain forecast for that day.

“The real question is would a reasonably competent flood engineer on that Sunday morning have foreseen that had he not reduced the water level by 8cm during that shift, there was a risk that at some point in the future there would be insufficient flood storage capacity such that the Brisbane River would overtop its banks and flood the plaintiff’s sporting goods store in suburban Brisbane,” Mr Stoljar said. “We say no such risk was foreseeable. Even if it was foreseeable, it was insignificant. It was far-fetched and fanciful.”