09-02-2022
As a result of a range of disasters, including storms and flooding along with the 2019/2020 bushfires, Upper Lachlan Shire has experienced seven disasters within a two year period where, on average there would normally be one every five to six years.
“For almost the first six months this financial year, the sheer amount of major damage we’ve experienced has severely impacted on our repair schedule and all but put our program of new works on hold,” Council’s Director of Infrastructure, Mr Glenn Lacey said.
“We are spending most of our time and money putting out spot fires when we know there is a lot more to be done. In many cases, we haven’t been able to enact repairs for some of the older disasters, or re-assess after repairs have been made.”
Mr Lacey mentioned Hillcrest Rd as an example of what repeated rain events have caused.
“Council maintains 6.5kms of Hillcrest Rd, which is about 7.5km south of Taralga,” he said.
“Ordinarily, our schedule for grading the road is once per year. We last graded it in September 2021 and have scheduled to do it again in February 2022. The February 2020 flooding caused damage to the road that was repaired and material replaced.
“In October 2021 another rain event caused more flooding, and this was again repaired and material replaced. Further flooding events followed on December 2021 and January 2022, both causing more damage and the washing away of more materials, and we had staff out there at weekends enacting temporary fixes.
“I know we’ve received criticism for applying temporary fixes, but the issue is that this is a scene playing out at many places across the Shire simultaneously. We don’t want to keep going out and re-fixing repairs, or wasting materials, but our priority is to get these damaged areas up to a trafficable level as quickly as possible across many areas at once.”
“We truly need a period without rain so that we can get around to longer-lasting fixes.”
In the period January 2020 to now, the following Disasters have been declared:
- January 2020 – NSW Bushfires
- February 2020 – NSW Storms and Floods
- August 2020 – NSW Storms and Floods
- October 2020 – NSW Floods
- November 2020 – NSW Storms
- March 2021 – NSW Storms
- July/August 2021 – NSW Storms
Mr Lacey said ULSC had received funding for the first four Disasters on that list, but there was frequently a significant delay in being compensated during which Council would pay the money.
Joint disaster recovery funding has been made available from the State and Federal Governments on several occasions, and this is then distributed by Resilience NSW through Transport for NSW or Public Works. But there can be a considerable delay in realising the funding.
“We are very thankful for the recovery funding we get, and for the continued representation on our behalves by our local members, Wendy Tuckerman and Angus Taylor. But it’s becoming much harder to get the full amount to cover the damage done,” he said.
“Some of these roads are near the end of their lives and complete repairs may now be in order ahead of our works schedule, but not always within the scope of disaster recovery funding.”
Mr Lacey said Council will continue to triage repairs and do it’s best to allocate its finite resources across Council’s 2,000 km of road, but the job becomes easier in the absence of more disasters.