Australia’s wettest spring on record causing floods, crop failures, evacuations, and locust plagues – ‘2010 held so much hope for our farmers’

By Hamish Boland-Rudder
December 7, 2010 AS NSW counts the cost of crop losses, evacuations, and property destruction brought by flooding rains, communities are preparing to deal with the human side of the disaster. The Macquarie River, which flows through the Warren Shire, has reached its highest level in 20 years after more than 100 millimetres of rain has fallen on the region in the past week. Water levels in Warren are expected to peak on Thursday at about 9.6 metres – 40 centimetres below the record set during the floods of 1955. More heavy rain is forecast.
”We’re facing a huge issue at the moment,” said the mayor of Warren Shire, Rex Wilson. ”The town itself is protected by a really good levy system. Our big concern is for the outlying landholders. ”Not only are they dealing with the flood, but they’re also dealing with catastrophic grain losses.” Farmers, initially buoyed by the rains that broke years of drought, are facing millions of dollars worth of crop damage. ”It is devastating,” said Tony Wass, 67, who has been a farmer in Warren Shire all his life. ”For people having gone through a decade of drought, then to be looking at having one of the best harvests possibly ever, and then to have that snatched away – it’s just heartbreaking.” Further downstream, the wheat and cotton farmer Julian Campbell is also struggling to salvage crops. ”If you looked at the land three weeks ago there were wonderful paddocks, but now with the rain, they’re devastated,” she said. ”It’s only taken three weeks to ruin people’s lives.”

Towns prepare to rally around devastated farmers

By Saffron Howden in WAGGA WAGGA and Aaron Cook
December 7, 2010 FLOODING across NSW is expected to worsen later this week as a band of heavy rain drenches the state. Flood warnings were in place for all western-flowing NSW rivers from the Namoi south to the Murrumbidgee, and the Bureau of Meteorology issued a flood watch for possible flooding for the north-west, south-west and central west districts. A hydrologist at the bureau, Shangyou Zhang, said there could be major flooding where heavy rain fell. ”If you get another 50 to 100 millimetres that will be really big trouble,” he said. Residents of Wagga Wagga, surrounded by submerged roads, yesterday flocked to the banks of their swollen river in sunny reprieve from the state’s drenching rain as the Premier, Kristina Keneally, declared their shire along with five others the latest natural disaster areas in a long list of 34 since October. In Wagga, residents and emergency workers had laid 90,000 sandbags – among about 150,000 used across the state – by late yesterday, a State Emergency Service spokesman said. A handful of houses around the sodden town had been inundated and at least one person had to be rescued from floodwaters in the west of Wagga. More than 700 people evacuated from their properties were advised not to return home last night, despite the Murrumbidgee peaking at just below 9.7 metres and holding steady for most of the day. Attention has now turned to the problem of dealing with the expected 80 millimetres of rain later this week, which could burst the Murrumbidgee’s banks. SES and local council pumps have been positioned around the town to carry away any water trapped in the centre because the levee gates, which would normally drain run-off into the river, are locked. ”What could throw a spanner in the works is this rain; that could cause some turmoil,” said the Wagga MP. Daryl Maguire, who is staying in a motel as his own property is cut off by floodwater. A bureau forecaster, Andrew Haigh, said the band of rain will cross western and central areas of NSW during tomorrow and Thursday. More than 50 millimetres of rain are forecast for the Riverina and South-West Slopes, with more than 25 millimetres in several other districts. ”Some areas could receive 100 to 150 millimetres over those two days,” he said. Wagga resident Ray George, 60, is preparing for the worst. The fibro single-storey house he bought at the age of 16 is now empty on one of north Wagga’s lowest-lying streets. It has no doors, no carpet, no furniture, and the windows are flung open to the baking heat. Just over the lip of the levee bank bordering his backyard is a sea that threatens to engulf the only home he has known as an adult. ”It’s heartbreaking, I can tell you,” he said. …

The levees might just hold … until Thursday’s rain

By Wendy Pugh
Dec 5, 2010 9:28 PM PT Flooding and heavy rainfall in Australia damaged wheat crops, disrupted coal production and caused communities to be evacuated as eastern states prepared for further wet weather this week. The rain may cut the quality of more than 40 percent of the country’s wheat crop, according to estimates by National Australia Bank Ltd. Rio Tinto Group, the world’s third-largest mining company, said today coal mines in central Queensland state had partially resumed operation after rains. Wheat futures in Chicago rallied to the highest level in four months on concern that the weather in Australia, the fourth-largest shipper, may reduce global supply of high-quality milling grain. The rain had wiped as much as A$500 million ($496 million) off the expected A$3.2 billion value of New South Wales winter crops, state Premier Kristina Keneally said today. “The weather we have been getting over the past couple of weeks has been terrible,” Michael Creed, an agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank Ltd. in Melbourne, said by phone. “Harvest conditions are shocking.” Rainfall of between 25 millimeters (1 inch) and 100 millimeters may extend from eastern South Australia to southern Queensland in the four days ending Dec. 9, the Bureau of Meteorology forecast. Flood warnings are current for rivers in New South Wales, its northern neighboring state Queensland and Victoria to its south. … Australia had its wettest September-to-November spring on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Thirty-four shires in New South Wales have been declared natural-disaster areas since flooding in October, Keneally said. … More than 10 million metric tons of the Australian crop may be downgraded to lower-quality classes and most of that could become feed grade, Creed said. National Australia Bank estimates total production at 23.8 million tons. …

Australia Floods Damage Crops, Force Evacuations; Coal Shipments Disrupted