Clearing, widening or dredging Mittagong Creek would be a bureaucratically complicated process which would have little effect on flood levels in the event of the major flood, consultant Drew Bewsher told last week's public meeting on the draft Bowral Floodplain Risk Management Plan.
Mr Bewsher, director of Bewsher Consultants, said that half of respondents to a survey on risk management strategies had called for Wingecarribee Shire Council to clear rubbish and weeds from the creek or widen the creek bed.
However, Mr Bewsher said to have any impact on flood levels, the creek would have to be widened by up to 20 metres and deepened by three metres.
"Council just doesn't have the power to implement it," he said. "Council would have to go to a whole range of operations in the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources (DIPNR), as well as the Sydney Catchment Authority, the Department of Fisheries and the Department of Environment.
"Even if they wanted to take the reeds out there is a multiplicity of bureaucracy. Their hands are somewhat tied."
Mr Bewsher said that management of the riparian corridor would make a lot of difference to flooding from small storm events but would not have much effect in the event of a one-in-100 year flood.
The Bowral Floodplain Risk Management Plan has recommended that Wingecarribee Shire Council undertake a separate study to look at riparian corridor management as a matter of high priority.
Mr Bewsher said of flood management options put forward in the study the Retford Park detention basin was recommended as a medium priority for development within the next four years.
Email a friend