While not Biblical, this year’s floods are ferocious, and the big wet shines a bright light on our Wakehurst floodplain fiasco.
That old chestnut, what to do about Wakehurst Parkway’s closures? It’s plagued the Northern Beaches for decades, but this time it’s different, ever since the axing of Mona Vale Hospital. So now, when the Parkway’s closed, for hours, the most direct route to the Northern Beaches’ (only) Hospital for those residents north of Narrabeen is dead in the water. You have to take the long way round.
It usually floods twice a year, sometimes six, and the timing is in the lap of the gods, con- ditional on concentration of rain, coincident with tides or wave action entering Narrabeen Lagoon, and whether the local Council opens the sand bar. Increasingly, subject to climate change.
In pre-polling, Hon. Jason Falinski MP urged voters to “find out the facts”. The $150 million upgrade of 2.5km of the Parkway, north of Warringah Rd by 2025. Yet adding barely 500m of dual-lane south carriageway, adjacent the culvert of Trefoil Creek. Doing nought near Dreadnought (for flood mitigation). The 14km long route is pot-holed to buggery. Patched after rain with cold mix emulsion, reminiscent of a 1960s Brylcreem TV ad, a little dab’ll do ya. It’s always the same. Communication breakdown. Havin’ a nervous attack, drivin’ me insane.
Our Council has $17.5Million of State (casino) tax revenues in play: to build levees, culverts, bunds and drainage. Extracting 28,000m2 of creek sediment to a depth of one metre. Stirring up riparian contaminants near aquatic habitats of Middle Creek. Over ten months, clearing 34,700m2 of vegetation, carted off by 2,800 dump-truck movements. Negatively impacting four ‘threatened’ ecological com- munities and 15 ‘threatened’ native species of bats, bittern, black cockatoo, flying fox, myotis, osprey, owl, and toadlet.
To what end? On completion of ‘capital works’, the Parkway will still close at times. When the levee breaks. Caus’ if it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break. Cryin’ won’t help, prayin’ won’t do no good. When tryin’ to find your way home. Council’s floodplain relief is illusion. A lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold. A stairway to heaven. Shadows taller than its soul. There’s a bustle in its hedgerow. There are paths it can go, there’s still time to change the satanic road it’s on.
Perhaps we will never be able to really get it together and make our children’s lives better. Since dawn of Greek antiquity, rivers and creeks are gods. With first autumn rains, life flourished. Now the sheer scale of human en- deavour overwhelms Mother Earth. Doubling atmospheric CO2 emissions from pre-Indus- trial days, rising radiative Watt/m2 of heat forcing from all anthropogenic influences upon the climate.
Year 2030 is our Deadline, before climate damage, that we have done, is irreversible. Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) indicate climate change. RCP4.5 of Watt/m2 sees ‘Slowly Declining Emissions’. RCP8.5 is ‘Rising Emissions’. The next values’ format is average temperature increase in degrees Celsius with (% increase in average rainfall). In 2030, RCP4.5 = 0.87 (4.3%), RCP8.5 = 0.98 (4.9%). By 2050, the respective values are 1.27 (6.4%) and 1.77 (9.0%). By 2070, the values are 1.68 (8.5%) and 2.72 (14.2%).
Are you still thinking about the grand- children downstream? At dusk, May 6th, 85 years ago – the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin’s Mothership LZ 129 Hindenburg, the symbolic pride of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, neared its mooring mast. Suddenly – the scheißflug’s fatal moment. Nothing could be saved. We have a bigger problem than Parkway closures.