HOW THE CARELLO LEVEE WAS BEHIND A SLOW-MOVING SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC AS WELL AS ENVIRONMENTAL ‘CATASTROPHE’ AT INNISFAIL:

The simple solution to the ‘billion-dollar plus’ problem, why some vested interests may try to keep ignoring or obstructing this, and transferable lessons of this case relevant to other parts of Queensland and Australia

- Dr. Cameron Richards for the Northern Australia Living Environment Group (NALEG), Cassowary Coast, September 2019.

In the mid 1970s the then Johnstone Shire council were dubiously persuaded (and hastily agreed) to put in a levee on the Carello farm at a pivotal section of the Johnstone River just before it reaches and extends out into the Coral Sea. It is only now after the magnified and repeated flooding effects of that decision have become clearer that the full financial as well as community costs of what might appropriately be called a ‘slow-motion catastrophe’ have also started fully emerging. As we further outline below, just one apparently inconsequential decision decades ago for one cane farm to get an extra dozen or so hectares or so may have helped cripple the local cane industry (i.e. a possibly pivotal cause of many other cane farmers going broke). But much more importantly, it appears to have cumulatively resulted in major damaging affects to around 15,000 hectares of the extended Johnston River tidal reach - linked to various creeks affected in the wider area as well as both the North and South Johnstone rivers near the critical point. This especially includes Ninds creek and the Bulguru Swamp catchment area right down to Mourilyan Harbour in the South, and Stones, Victory and Fitzgerald creeks to the North up to Daradgee, and Bamboo, Gracie and a few other creeks in the central South Johnstone area of Innisfail.

The damaging effects of the Carello Levee described below therefore affect a very large area of urban sub-divisions, farms, and wetlands as well as the erosion and siltation effects on the River and also surrounding creek and coastal sections. This includes damaging effects at the popular Flying Fish Point beach which currently require daily truckloads of rocks (at $500 or so a pop) to extend the expensive rock walls being put in there (as well as at many other spots along the Johnstone River tidal reach area) to combat the related problems. Conservative estimates suggest that close to a $100 million have been spent on not only related rock walls but also additional drains, flood gates and silt traps to remediate the damage. This further suggests the magnitude of related effects and costs. Our overview below of these indicates that the overall direct costs of the avoidable damage caused could be up to a billion dollars - or even perhaps much more! This is even before considering many intangible threats to the future sustainability of Innisfail and adjacent areas. However, it is still not too late to fix the situation. The current Council and community need to be much more aware about the unnecessary disaster and the options as well as urgent need to remedy the situation.

And the current DNR regime (i.e. the DNRME) must come clean on whether there has been a cover-up over decades as appears may have been the case. They should immediately commission a genuinely independent investigation of not only the Carello Levee’s effects on the Innisfail community as well as the Johnstone River tidal reach over the years – but also its own general conduct as well as that of particular individuals like the local Water Resources engineer directly involved from the beginning.

BACKGROUND: How what seemed a minor decision at the time can and should now be much more clearly linked to a range of major, costly and damaging effects

After adjacent urban subdivisions in the Eaton area of Innisfail in the early 1970s influential local farmer and publican Andy Carello became convinced that water runoff and inadequate drainage provisions had accentuated regular flooding effects on his farm along the crucial bend at Rocky Point before the Johnston River reaches the ocean. Perhaps Mr Carello was not aware or had forgotten how his farm was actually on a bend of the river where runoff in floods through this area was a natural process assisting the self-regulation of the Johnstone river tidal reach area – especially in major floods. In any case he demanded the then Johnstone Shire Council put in a special levee and also a drain to protect his cane farm in the area – threatening legal action if they did not. Consensus is that the then Council did not accept the argument put to them and were not really agreeable to this. But under threat of legal action, they apparently decided to accede to the request or ultimatum put to them - with little understanding by anyone concerned about just how major those affects might become. So it was that a levee was built directly obstructing the crucial flood overflow section of the Johnson River immediately before the Rocky Point corner.

There was a major flood soon after in 1980 which produced some very damaging effects at that time which almost no-one immediately connected to the Levee construction (local resident Murray Mackenzie excepted). Although the 1980 flood water volume was clearly much lower than the 1967 ‘1 in 50 years’ flood, that year the floodwater levels and velocities, and the related

sedimentation and silting effects, were much higher and greater generally than in 1967. The extraordinary but apparently inexplicable flooding as well as other effects were also behind the producing in 1985 of the first of three overlapping Cameron McNamara reports. These were produced for the then Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on floods, siltation and creek effects – which also acted for the Johnstone River Improvement Trust (a Council initiative). This was after Sir Joseph McEvoy, representing the local cane industry, made formal complaints in early 1984 about the strange new flooding crisis affecting local farmers and others – bringing matters to a head that the cause of this needed to be properly identified. The fact that so many additional reports have followed the initial three McNamara/DRN reports in the late 1980s reinforces how these reports tended to be descriptive and generally did not attempt let alone provide any satisfactory explanation for all the post-1980 flood problems and issues.

In particular, it was from the 1980s that the water levels of Ninds Creek through to Bulguru Swamp had risen a reported 1.6 metres higher than should have been the case. But then after the floodwaters receded elsewhere, an Etty Bay Road culvert along this creek blocked the water from receding in that section. This culvert had been incompetently installed by Main Roads with ‘normal’ water levels raised 1.8 metres above what they should have been. This was reportedly after surveyors incorrectly used inaccurate WW2 water level markers (a mistake believed to have been originally made by US army surveyors at that time). This area was so far away from the Carello Levee that it took decades to make the link. However, the same Innisfail Water Resources engineer responsible for the Carello Levee was also the one directly responsible for the building of a rock wall dam in 1997 behind the culvert. To cut a long story short (and as the Land Court later ruled) this was done both to ensure the higher water levels remained and also to block efforts by those adversely affected by these to engineer a resumption of normal water levels.

As a result, the rising water levels (augmented by related siltation levels that impacted adjacent drains) had such a dramatic impact on the catchment area that many nearby cane farms were forced to reduce down or were even closed down in some cases. Around 20 cane farmers are believed to have lost their farms because of effects making these non-viable that now can be linked back to the Levee. The resulting legal actions from all this over many years eventually recognised (much later on) the crucial role of the Carello Levee installation just before the 1980 flood. As will be discussed below, three of these (the DeMaria, Cutuli, and Borg family cane farms) were jointly linked to legal actions over several decades.

These linked actions eventually reached an out of court settlement not so long ago in favour of Cutuli and Borg (DeMaria having died earlier). This was based on finally cutting through denials, evasions and apparent obstructions to recognise that pivotal causes behind various damaging effects included not just the Etty Bay Road culvert blocking backflows of the Johnstone River Ninds Creek tributary - but also the Carello Levee. The finalisation of twenty years of legal efforts came after two critical events. One was that the judge presiding in the related legal action reportedly told the DNR that emerging new evidence in the case was sufficient to ensure that they would lose the case. This was after the DNR and their main witness were found to have falsely claimed that water in the Ninds Creek beyond the Etty Bay Road culvert did not involve tidal flows – a possibly incompetent error which opened up the case to recognition also of other errors and apparent wilful collusion to cover up the truth about the artificially high water levels. And it was also after Malcolm Johnstone, Water Resources engineer for the Innisfail district (acting for several related government agencies we understand, including the DNR), reportedly took his own life just before he was called back to testify in court. It seems that this was after damaging new evidence had emerged about not only his role in also building an additional rock wall dam behind the Etty Bay Road culvert and also blocking efforts (by DeMaria, Cutuli and Borg) to remediate the artificially higher new normal Ninds Creek levels downstream from the culvert. But also he was the Water Resources engineer also responsible for the Carello Levee, and how this caused the 1.6 higher flood levels along Ninds creek in the first place.

In other words, Johnstone would have surely known how the Etty Bay Road culvert and adjacent dam were causing such havoc in the area. He also should have been aware of how this all linked back to higher water levels caused by the Carello Levee he was also responsible for. It appears that he may have had a stronger vested interest in the artificially higher water levels at Bulguru Swamp than just covering up for mere incompetence. It seems that this may have had to do with other secretive activities reportedly taking place in or around Bulguru Swamp. It should be further pointed out how the efforts of Johnstone and others for the DNR and related organisations not only blocked the Bulguru Swamp cane farmers but also other concerned Innisfail-cum-Cassowary Coast residents and ratepayers who began to make the direct connections much earlier. Special mention should be made of Murray McKenzie whose house was initially flooded in 1980 and who immediately linked this to effects caused by the Carello Levee. He apparently spent the next couple of decades (before he left the district in 2007) trying to make people aware of the pivotal causes of the flooding and related effects

EFFECTS: The main, direct and immediate effects of the Carello Levee on the Johnstone River tidal reach – and how this is further linked to a number of key indirect effects also that have cumulatively worsened since then

The unavoidable and demonstrable fact is that flood water levels in the Johnstone River tidal reach area around Innisfail had become artificially higher by a substantial amount after 1980.

This can be demonstrated by a comparison between the ‘1 in 25 year flood’ in 1999 and the ‘1 in 50 year flood’ in 1967 reported in a WBM Oceanics flood study. As this study outlined, in 1967 there was rainfall of 961 mm leading to a peak of 6500 cumecs peak which compares with an average 4500 cumecs over a 48 hours period. In 1999 there was a smaller rainfall amount (400 mm of rain translated into 3500 cumecs over a period of 48 hours). Or to put this another way, about a 1/3 less water came down the river in 1999 compared to 1967. Yet in 1999 the river levels were almost half a metre (400 mm) higher than in 1967. How could this be?

And how could the construction of the Carello Levee several years earlier be a consistent explanation for not only this but the Bulguru Swamp catchment issues about 15 klm away and various other effects? This levee was built along a reach of the Johnstone River after the North and South sections of the river converge and just before the Rocky Point bend (also prior to the river current dispersing right out to sea). Previously with significant floods in the area, floodwaters would naturally ‘over flow’ across the bend in the River right across a lower section of the Carello farm. They would do so with an average surface level gradient of 1% gradient across the whole of the Johnstone River tidal reach. With the natural floodwaters path now blocked by the levee, it is now typically ? % before the Rocky Point left-hand bend – but then becomes a volatile 4% incline after this. This is until the changed river current bounces off the opposite Rinkovich Point then hits the right-hand corner one klm or so later at Crocodile Rock.

Then from there the main current moves out to sea in a different direction as well as velocity to floodwaters prior to the Levee’s construction. All this had been known by earlier investigators, but only more accurately interpreted in the 2000 Fielding & Orpin Report by independent university researchers. They further identified how this change of gradients, river direction and floodwater velocity (and related silting effects) were all caused by the Carello Levee. They also plausibly explained how this would cause beach erosion into the future at Flying Fish Point beach. Twenty years later this has become a serious and expensive crisis as the popular beach has literally been gouged out (hence, the current regular process of trucks carrying rocks for an emergency sea wall).

In other words, the Carello Levee caused two related floodwater effects to converge in higher levels linked to permanent damaging effects on the river and tidal reaches even in non-flood or normal periods. One was the change from a ‘GENTLE S’ path of river floodwaters escaping to the sea across the Carello farm overflow to a ‘DESTRUCTIVE Z’ directly caused by the Carello Levee blocking the natural overflow. From Rocky Point the new main current shoots across towards the Rinkovich Point corner causing a whirlpool effect before exponentially veering down to Crocodile Rock at a very fast velocity. However, after then rebounding off the Crocodile Rock section (causing the dropping off of copious amount of silt), the changed river current then slows again to HALF the rate it should have been. The related result was a further siltation of the main river section around the mouth of the river – with fishing trawlers and other larger boats now restricted to high tides because of this. In short, the destructive Z effect resulting from the Levee has not only substantially translated into greater sedimentation and silting affects all along the River tidal reach but specially at the mouth – directly inhibiting the natural flushing effect of big floods (2-3 klms) right out to sea.

Some of the changes in river gradient, velocity and direction at flood times have also translated into more enduring cumulative effects. As well as the damaging effects of siltation and sedimentation also back up the rivers, creeks, and also installed drains of the entire Johnstone River tidal reach (and around the mouth out in to the Coral Sea), there have been ‘scouring’ effects of changed directions in river currents. These effects have been directly linked to how rock walls have become essential at certain sections of the river in normal times as well as at when significant flooding occurs. For instance, on the South side of Johnstone River opposite the Levee section the current now goes inside Banana Island to severely gouge out the river bank there. Parts of the road along this Corso section have also been ‘eaten away’, also requiring extensive rock wall sections there. This compares with the silting up effects just below the Levee on the other side of the river.

It is estimated that significant changes in river gradient, flow velocity and flooding levels have occurred in both the North and South Rivers going back up stream around 12-15 klms. The changed gradient levels of the Johnstone River have translated into higher flooding levels in Ninds Creek to the South at 1.6 metres similar to both the areas and creeks around the town centre (e.g. Bamboo Creek) along with adjacent nearby residential areas and sub-divisions. Some of the newer residential areas such as Mourilyan, Wangan, Mundoo and Daragee have suffered regular damaging floods.

Related higher flooding level affects linked back to the Carello farm thus include the stirring up of upstream sediments (including rocks, sand, gravel etc) which mostly affect downstream in terms of substantial silting effects both along sections of the Johnstone River (e.g. and also Crocodile Rock) and also downstream in various creeks and drains linked to the river – especially Ninds Creek. As indicated above, the Etty Bay Road culvert and rock wall dam appear to have blocked the escape of the 1980 floods and the additional higher water levels in Bulguru Swamp have come to be considered ‘normal’.

This all needs to be viewed in light of not just Carello Levee intervention but how much of the Johnstone River tidal reach also extends to wetland as well as mangrove areas which are increasingly recognised to have substantial environmental value – especially the world-class ‘blue carbon sink’ areas which will take on increasing importance as the Australian as well as carbon markets start to take off again. This is especially so in the Ninds Creeks link to the Bulguru Swamp catchment area where we think that a regenerative and carbon farming framework can help reconcile and balance how the Cassowary Coast area can and should be both a very important farming and land restoration area. Many existing farmers will need to get their heads around this and balance farming outputs with environmental protection of both land and nearby ocean areas. Likewise also, some environmentalists do need to better appreciate that some ‘land restoration areas’ may be located in sections affected by artificially higher flood levels caused by the Carello Levee (i.e. some localised benefits of this may also be heavily outweighed by the massive overall damage caused to the environment as well as to existing farming and residential areas).

One of the family members linked to the DeMaria, Cutuli & Borg legal actions against the DNR and others has provided us with a sad and damning account of the terrible impact on the three men and their families of the emotional as well as financial costs incurred over the 25 years or so they fought their battles This was not just in relation to the legal actions against people being dishonest, obstructive and trying to cover up the truth, but more importantly the devastating impact on their family farms of being denied a viable future. They told of a father who literally threw his hat up in the air in rage and despair when his son told him that he could no longer make the cane farm work because of the artificially high water levels. He then refused to speak to his son for weeks, etc. There were also stories of health and family breakdowns under immense pressure as emotional and financial costs took their toll on many in the family. People should know how this typified similar accounts of others affected by the Carello Levee effects – people who battled valiantly to survive for long periods of time, but often ended up losing homes, businesses, and sometimes even lives.

COSTS: How one push for a few extra hectares may have cost the local community a billion plus dollars

There is no doubting the very damaging effects from the first significant flood (1980) after the construction of the Carello Levee at Rocky Point bend. As indicated above, a holistic and independent view certainly helps (but is not necessarily required) to best recognise how this Levee artificially interfered with the self-regulation of river flood waters. This is in terms of a range of inter-related effects that ultimately have been substantial and very expensive over four decades now. Whilst these effects have involved a range of intangibles which can be hard to put a specific value on, there remain a number of more tangible cost effects that can help to give a better overall cost of the Levee to the community as well as many farmers, residents, businesses, etc. This section here looks at how we might begin to measure the overall financial costs of the damages apparently caused by the Carello Levee and its related effects. It further reports on how an overall projection of a billion dollars might be a useful starting point at least. Indeed, such a figure may grossly underestimate the situation, even putting aside some of the intangibles (environmental destruction, a range of industry losses including tourism and fishing as well as the more obvious cane farm projections).

As suggested above, the extensive rock wall protections for affected river banks, some creeks, and at Flying Fish Point beach are perhaps a good place to start. This is not just in terms of the estimated costs (at least $40 million we think, and still counting as the trucks keep carting rocks there). It is as confirmation also of how the resulting higher flood levels from changed river gradients also linked up with changes in normal river currents and related siltation effects that have blocked not just parts of the main Johnstone river (and both South and North tributaries of this) but also various adjoining creeks and drains. Thus, there are many additional costs in terms of related drainage systems, flood gates and silt traps that have had to be installed throughout the Johnstone River tidal reach (at least $10 million or so perhaps – including a fortune spent on ‘flood-proofing’ central business and residential areas. In fact, just one drain alone – also on Carello’s farm but in the wrong position to do anything to assist remedying the levee effects – has cost more than $20 million to construct and further maintain over the last few decades. And the costs of clearing up or dredging all the silted up creeks and drains as well as the blocked up Innisfail port and river mouth out to sea (most of it barely addressed so far) could perhaps run in the hundreds of millions if ever properly attempted. We have just heard that some government department has agreed to clear out and ‘de-snag’ just a short section of Ninds creek in the Bulguru Swamp catchment area to try and reduce water levels there. We are yet to get a costing on this, but surely it won’t be cheap.

As indicated above, the various effects of the Carello Levee linked back also to artificially higher flood levels more or less cover the entire 15000 hectares of the Johnstone river tidal reach. This includes not only residential areas, businesses and farms but also creeks, swamps and related wetlands. This is also especially so in relation to how higher flood levels of up to 1.6 metres have often had dramatic or substantial cost effects in the flooding of what were already fairly low-lying areas and/or originally swamp or wetland areas. Whilst damaging effects to the last items are perhaps harder to quantify, we can make some reasonable projections about homes and farms affected.

It has been estimated that the percentage of the 15000 hectares or so of the Johnstone tidal reach which consist of residential areas is around 10% or 1500 hectares. This includes both acreage lots and conventional residential subdivisions. Many of these are now known to be particularly flood-prone (Mourilyan, Wangan, Daragee, etc). Out of around an estimated 8000 or so homes and business buildings in the Innisfail district we have been told that up to 3000 of these could have had their values effectively halved (could be up to 3000 X $150,000 = $450 million). The rest are also suffering generally ‘reputational damage’ from the district’s well-documented flood problems that have typically been accentuated by at least 400mm higher than should have been the case in the main residential areas.

The main business district as well as residential homes in some parts of the centre of Innisfail have also often been badly affected by artificially higher flood levels affecting some of the creeks which run also through these areas. The overall flooding problems can be said to have generally lowered the values of other properties also. This includes brick, masonry block, and wooden ‘Queenslanders’ - and especially single story homes or businesses but also double story buildings as well) across the central city area and other residential areas. We understand that a general devaluation across the board may be something like an average of 20% overall. [Say, 20/100 of 5000 X $400,000 = $400 million or so devaluations that might be directly linked to the higher artificial flood levels caused by the Levee]. Many businesses have closed down and a significant percentage of the effective costing of this could be attributed to the loss of economic activities more directly linked to the flooding and other effects on the Johnstone tidal reach than other factors such as the wider and more intangible ‘economic malaise’ effect currently afflicting many regional Qld towns and the cane industry on an irregular basis.

There are many other related incidentals that should not be forgotten. For a long time now any new buildings in local flood-prone areas have been required under Council by-laws to be built on raised levels (a conservative estimate may be 1000 new homes/buildings x $10,000 = $10 million). And every time it floods there is a mountain of ruined furniture, whitegoods, etc, standing outside many houses in the flood-prone areas (again a possibly conservative estimate is 3000 x $5000 = $15 million devaluation or loss X many times = $100s of million???). A resident of Joddral street who recently sold (“gave away”) their “$400,000 PLUS” two story home for just $200,000, mentioned to us how they had to move furniture from the ground floor to the top to avoid floods ‘more than 20 times in 20 years’. This example illustrates the typical challenges and costs faced by many residents with single-story homes in these areas.

The losses to farming land values and incomes directly attributable to the artificially higher flood levels (and related effects) caused by the Carello Levee can also begin to be quantified as well. We can project that farms make up around 12000 hectares of the 15000 hectares estimated to make up the Johnstone River tidal reach (will assume a possible 1500 hectares as creeks, wetlands, ‘regrowth areas’, etc.). On information given to us it seems that much of that 12000 hectares was prime cane land in the late 1970s equivalent in value to perhaps $20,000 hectares typically reduced in value to mere grazing land where a farmer selling might be lucky to get $5000 per hectare [obviously we need to account for a distinction between the crippling of the local industry because of the post 1980 flood issue and the ups and downs of global sugar cane – but will put that aside for now]. In those 12000 hectares there are various situations ranging from those who stopped being able to farm at all to those (like one quite typical 150 hectare farm we looked at whilst writing this was forced to convert their farm to more than 100 hectares grazing with less than 50 hectares for cane and bananas). If we project that half of the farming areas of the tidal reach area in question are substantially affected and the other half moderately affected then we can reach the following estimate of capital depreciation that might have a substantial component caused by the Carello Levee [6000 X $15000 + 6000 X $10,000 = $150 million].

The farmer income losses may be much more. From the reference point of the productive and dominant cane farms of around 1980 we can calculate that 100 tonnes per hectare were being produced at a retrospective value today of $60 per tonne gross income to the community. More than 20 cane farmers in this area are known to have lost their farms and many others are barely surviving even after turning to mainly livestock grazing, etc. We have been told that it would be close to the mark to assume that 12000 hectares have been reduced in cane output to about a third of the 1980 mark [$40 gross per tonne X 100 X 12000 = $48 million]. And for the purposes of this exercise we are going to assume that grazing or other farm income is about equivalent to the one third reduction of the 1980 productive reference point (although it is actually a good deal lower). Even if we applied the current yearly projection of the above farm and related community income losses over just a retrospective 20 not 40 years (with a ‘current values adjustment’) then 20 X $48 million = a possible ballpark figure of close on a billion dollars).

And we have not even begun to factor in yet the additional industry income losses associated with the loss of three sugar mills further extending to include the related additional loss of not just business activity but jobs and related financial activities of all the workers also lost [again, possibly in the $100s of millions?]. There are many other intangible projections of possible ‘losses’ that could be made – especially in relation to other effects like the terrible siltation/sedimentation effects of the Johnstone River and its various tributaries unleashed by the Carello Levee (as reflected also in the formal Reports describing an exponential increase of siltation problems and effects since 1980). As indicated above, the siltation of key parts of the Johnstone river and especially as it meets the Coral Sea alone are just one quite direct effect that if translated into the dredging and other work needed to rectify might run into many $100 millions (if not possibly billions). This has clearly affected the local commercial fishing industry - with trawlers not fully stopped but somewhat restricted (e.g. needing to use high tides for entry and exits). But it surely has also affected local recreational fishing in terms of various impacts on lifestyle and attractions to visitors and tourists as well as prospective new residents.

The silting has effectively blocked some key options to develop a local tourist industry over recent decades. This is especially so in relation to the kinds of tourist boats which could have operated out of the town centre going out to the adjacent Great Barrier Reef - as well as also catering for recreational fishing and other activities along the Cassowary Coast that attract tourists at Cairns and other places. How do you put a price on effectively losing the option for such a great economic possibility because of the effects that might be directly linked backed to one decision (more billions?). Whilst some Qld government-funded land restoration projects are getting up in areas also affected by the artificially higher flooding areas this could still happen and more sustainably so with adjustments if the Levee is removed. What then could also be more actively promoted are the kinds of eco-tourism resorts and activities which the Cassowary Coast could cater for and promote much more substantially. And we have not even started to put a value here on wider and more general damage costs to the natural environment (again, this could be in the $billions).

We needed here to outline the scope of the possible economic costs that might ultimately be linked back to the Carello Levee. This is in order to both recognise the importance of a solution and also how this could really benefit the local community, economy and environment in the future. Innisfail can and should we believe be one of the most economically vibrant communities in not only in the region and state but nationally. Putting aside the relaxed and attractive North Queensland tropical lifestyle and climate, and the proximity to the reef, rainforests, and other natural attractions, the district would be a perfect for the kind of regenerative and carbon farming that can revitalise farms but also harness how the area is also a central part of how this part of North Queensland is one of the most globally significant ‘blue carbon sinks’ in terms of mangroves, wetland marshes and seagrass).

The removal of the Levee will not change everything overnight but can be a central ‘pivot’ to turn things around for everyone in the local community and help create a more vibrant economy, and a place more attractive to prospective new residents as well as tourists. With its natural soils and rainfall, etc, it should also be one of the premier farming areas of Australia. To harness this will require that farming land-owners adapt new environmental protection methods, regenerative (e.g. organic) farming practices, and balance agricultural outputs with wetland protections (e.g. through integrated carbon farming practices as the global carbon market takes off again and permanently so) – but perhaps also that they move from the traditional reliance on cane and also bananas to other diversity options which may include rice, tropical fruits and aquatic farms (owned by locals and not notorious overseas companies only concerned with ruthless off-shore profiteering as well as money-laundering, etc).

REPORTS?: Cutting through the information of endless related Reports to confirm the basic implications of the emerging evidence

Local Innisfail resident Murray Mackenzie immediately made the connection between extraordinary flooding levels in 1980 and the Carello Levee. Other local cane farmers (as well as those such as DeMaria, Cutuli and Borg in the Bulguru Swamp catchment area) also soon noticed very concerning residual effects that seemed to be linked to the 1980 flooding. However, they generally did not link this to the Levee at that stage. It was largely in response to these regular and developing concerns (and further emerging information and evidence) from around 1984 that the Johnstone River Trust initially (also initially on behalf of the then local Council) and later the Qld government DNR agency commissioned eight formal reports from 1985 through to 2007 which it has been estimated have cost around $10 million dollars.

The first three reports were conducted by local Water Resources engineer Cameron McNamara for the Trust and were completed between 1984 and 1989. They focused separately on the flooding and different siltation effects, but did not consider the possibility that this could have been caused by the Carello Levee (or indeed any other integrated cause). These reports typified how from then until almost thirty years later, there appears to have been no real effort to find any central cause beyond a descriptive, symptomatic, and it seems selectively evasive focus on different effects (or related variables) in isolation for the most part. There was one clumsy initial attempt by McNamara to blame the artificially higher flooding on siltation levels. However, it was not until the DeMaria, Cutuli and Borg-commissioned report by WBM Oceanics in 1994 (re: the Etty Road culvert issues) and later the 2000 Fielding & Orpin Report (re: the renewed focus on the central role of the Carello Levee) that more interpretative and also generally independent approaches were taken.

It was thus largely in relation to the DeMaria, Cutuli & Borg actions that the Russell & Hobbs 1997 report was linked to efforts by the DNR (overseen by Malcolm Johnstone) to deny and block efforts and arguments that were ultimately vindicated many years later. This is especially so in terms of how Johnstone not only led DNR efforts to deny that that there could have been any artificially higher flooding effects at either the Etty Road blocking of Ninds Creek (where he organised an additional rock wall dam in 1997) or the Carello Levee (which he was also responsible for). However, the Russell & Hobbs report did usefully indicate how the marine ‘habitats and fisheries resources of the Johnstone River’ had mysteriously deteriorated over the previous decade or so – another important casualty it seems of the other Carello Levee effects.

It was the independent Fielding & Orpin 2000 commissioned by the local ‘Concerned Ratepayers Group’ that really got to the bottom of things about the problems caused by the Carello Levee. Their report concluded that: “Field investigations have clearly established that Carello’s Levee is obstructing a natural floodway that allows water to disperse downstream during high flow events by cutting across a tightly constricted bend in the river. .. We recommend that the natural floodway be re-established by removing much of the levee structure, sacrificing a small portion of land in the interests of protecting more elevated arable land adjacent, and reducing potential flood risks in the immediate area”

Fielding and Orbin not only identified the central cause of the artificially much higher flooding levels since 1980 in the Johnstone River tidal reach area, but also how this was behind a range of related effects. They clarified that the siltation effects all over the tidal reach were a symptom of the Levee-caused flooding (not the other way around). In addition to an 1894 maritime map of the area, they found survey maps going back to 1872 which clearly showed that the Rocky Point bend was not there earlier and that the natural flow had always been straight across this area until the Carello Levee blocked this. Very relevant to today also with further controversies about new rock walls needed, their report also explained why there would be ongoing and future gouging out of the beach at Fisherman’s Point Beach in terms of the changed gradient, siltation and river current velocity effects caused by the levee construction.

The same consultancy group (WBM Oceanics) which conducted the earlier report for DeMaria, Cutuli & Borg was also then apparently commissioned by the DNR to counteract and discredit the Fielding & Orbin report – and specifically the notion that the Carello Levee was blocking a natural flood-way and could be linked to range of flooding, siltation and other effects. WBM Oceanics completed a report in 2004 (and a related management plan in 2005) using computer modelling which basically did that job to also merely conclude that there just needed to be more studies down of the flooding to work out was going on. However, whilst they included the Carello Levee in their variables (which they needed to do if it was indeed their intention to try and discredit its central claims - beyond vaguely claiming these were ‘inconclusive’), they made an apparently intentional error that should be exposed as either gross incompetency or a possibly wilful corruption of their analysis.

WBM Oceanics made computer modelling of six critical levels of rainfall events causing floods of various magnitudes (i.e. 1 in 2, 5, 10, 25, 50,and 100 years) applied to a wide range of possibly variables relevant to the Johnson River tidal reach However, whilst they did also consider the Carello Levee in their calculations, in terms of two key levels (1 in 2 years and 1 in 50 years). This is in contrast to how all six levels were applied to all other variables besides the Carello Levee. In relation to the Levee, these two particular levels were suspiciously ‘self-negating’ as 1 in 2 years was too small to register in terms of the Fielding & Orbin projections and the 1 in 50 yeas was too broad to register. In short, WBM Oceanics failed to apply the levels that should have confirmed the Fielding and Orbin analysis and conclusion. Given the repeated efforts by the DNR et al to ignore or disingenuously discredit, it is hard to avoid the impression that this crucial omission may have been an intentional coverup. And if not, then it was at least sheer unprofessional incompetence.

But the DNR was not done with matters that also still directly linked at that time to the legal action against them by DeMaria, Cutuli & Borg – matters that deeply involved their star witness local Water Resources engineer Malcolm Johnstone. They then further commissioned another consultancy group DHI to do a review of all the reports undertaken (and apparently also to further try and dismiss or credit the Fielding & Corbin report and conclusions). From its very beginning pages the DHI comparative report claimed that the 2004 WBM Oceanics report must be recognised as ‘the primary study” (and by implication the others should be generally ignored). It then dismisses the Fielding & Orbin report on the vague and unconvincing basis that the findings are ‘not well documented’ [Its not clear what they meant by ‘documented’ but perhaps endless data signifying nothing rather than a plausible explanation or model of root causes not just effects or symptoms}. Showing just how hasty they were in their short trip to Innisfail, the report investigators said that they had been planning to look at the Corella Levee directly. But because it was raining that day (14/6/2006) they never made it – and so assumedly never left their air-conditioned hotel room that day.

The DNR’s DHI report ends up with the lame conclusion that simply repeated that of the 1985 McNamara study: “We recommend – further analysis of flood behaviour”. Putting aside how a closer inspection elucidates the hasty, ad hoc and contrived tendencies of this badly written report, it could also be said this is a classic case of “We looked but did not see anything”. And this seemed to reinforced by the reported response of Errol Coleman (the Water Resources engineer who replaced Malcolm Johnstone). This was when a reliable informant concerned about the apparent cover-up told Mr. Coleman that he had read a copy of this report and had some concerns and questions about it. He reported that Coleman became angry and demanded to know who had provided him with a copy as there were only a handful in existence apparently. If this is correct, then it seems that the actual report itself (as distinct from the title) may have been meant to be kept a secret.

It is much more than a coincidence that Benoit Mandelbrot developed perhaps the most powerful model of complexity and change in nature from an initial study of the tidal and other fluctuations in the river Nile over time. His ‘fractal’ model of complex, inter-related natural systems (including social and economic/financial systems) helps to explain how the metaphor that “A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe” might help us to understand the links between Carello Levee and all the related effects and also costs described in our report above [The Carello Levee ‘fractal’: i.e. if you mess a ‘part’, then you can also really mess up ‘the whole’ in terms of ‘unintended consequences’]. Certainly, it’s safe to say that the engineers behind the DNR reports probably had little or no understanding of such models of how complex natural systems work. Likewise, they appear to have had no real interest in either holistically interpreting the inter-linked events and interdependent effects of the Johnstone River tidal reach since 1980. They appear to also have had little or no real interest in independently searching for and reporting/presenting/defending the truth. This was clearly also the case in related instances like the basic and verifiable error behind the related Etty Bay Road fiasco which ruined a few lives in the Bulguru Swamp catchment area.

Around the same time that the DNR got a warning from the judge presiding over the DeMaria, Cutuli & Borg legal action against them that they were about to ‘lose’ because of the emerging evidence about not only the Carello Levee but the Etty Bay Road culvert at Ninds Creek (and additional rock wall dam installed by Johnstone), there was one more interesting twist to this whole case. A successful local entrepreneur Daniel Suboos hatched a plan to not only buy land on the other side of Carello’s farm but to also convert this into a residential sub-division. The DNR together with the Council apparently insisted that Suboos apply a provided plan to put in a new flood bypass in the area. But this did not involve Carello’s Levee (which was to remain in place), but rather a large bypass drain around the other side of Carello’s farm (to be installed at Suboos own great expense). Not surprisingly Suboos gave up on his plans and reportedly sold the land soon after. However, if our information about this is correct, then it appears that the DNR has been secretly acknowledging for some time that they (and Innisfail) have a real problem, that this should remain covered up, and that they would like someone else to pay for it? It appears that they and other vested interests at Innisfail are still covering up all this (and likely to continue trying to do so unless they are really held to account) because of the fear of being accountable?

CONCLUSION: What is needed to fix the problem – and really harness the area’s world-class future potential at the same time?

Rivers often change their courses. But survey maps going back 150 years or so indicate that when the Johnstone River floods it not only needs to but has always had a natural overflow path in a GENTLE S of some kind out to the Coral Sea. The DESTRUCTIVE Z effects produced when a Levee was installed for Carello along the Rocky Point bend (to ensure his ownership and access to a threatened twenty acre or so area of cane) suggest the following: that from the beginning that this was a big mistake for the whole Johnstone River tidal reach area. This present report has revisited both the convincing conclusions of the 2000 Fielding & Orpin report (i.e. that the levee should be removed as a matter of urgency and natural flood overflow or bypass re-installed) and also the full sorry saga of how the DNR in general as well as particular employee responsible for building this (and also the linked Etty Bay Road rock wall dam at Ninds Creek) have apparently contrived to cover up the truth of all this. It also appears that to perhaps avoid their responsibilities, they may been prepared to let the whole district as well as residents like Murray Mackenzie and farmers like DeMaria, Cutuli and Borg to suffer needlessly for the last 35 years and counting.

As we have discussed, the various damaging effects linked back to the Levee blocking significant floods has become a ‘slow-moving social and economic as well as environmental catastrophe’ because of how: (a) how they have been further converted into ongoing ‘normal’ impacts, and (b) how this has all greatly disrupted local economic and social activity as well as the natural water-based ecosystem in the Johnstone River tidal reach area and beyond also. Therefore, whilst many of the related effects may not be fixed overnight now, there is a simple solution which can start the process: the immediate removal of the Levee and the restoration of a natural flood overflow or bypass in its place.

If this can happen soon, then as also discussed above we think that this can kickstart a process by which the Innisfail district (primarily located in the Johnstone River tidal reach) can and should recover its will to also overcome other obstacles and restraints as well – to become yet again an important area, a vibrant community, and an attractive place to both live in and visit. This is because some of the benefits of getting rid of the Levee might include: reducing artificially high flood levels, preventing the present excessive siltation effects, enhancing river navigability, reinventing local industries, alleviating a good deal of the current effects of flooding on low-lying areas in the district,, and promoting greater community awareness and solidarity [And yes, perhaps also encourage a few of the bureaucrats in the DNR* or related government agencies to mend their unhelpful or even dishonest backside-covering ways].

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* the present version of the DNR is known as the DNRME (with Mines and Energy not so long ago added to the Department of Natural Resources)