This is a story about a small coastal town in New South Wales that is in the second stage of drowning.
It realised it was caught in a strong tide decades ago, started to tread water while looking about to see how far it was to the safety of a solid 'in good faith' urban planning riverbank, found it was in trouble and raised a hand high in the air hoping someone would notice its growing distress.
All that happened was that that successive federal, state and local governments waved at it from the shore and turned away to continue their discussions with property speculators and developers.
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For decades this town has been told by federal and state governments that it needed to expand to grow their respective economies. Local government has said it needs to contribute to the local economy (and by implication grow Council's rate base) as well as the regional economy.
Time and again developers have told the town that clear felling more and more land, as well as draining the marshes, natural flood ways and flood storage land then covering these areas with landfill, will benefit local communities by increasing the supply of housing in the town - that they are in fact 'good neighbours' to have in the community. If the community pushed back these same developers more often than not quickly fell back on their 'rights' as owners of portions of the hundreds of hectares in question and, not infrequently pointed to barely activated development consents they had hoarded as nest eggs until a more favourable political or economic climate developed.
And because all three tiers of government frequently talk in terms of legal ownership of land and its cash value as rateable land, regardless of its aesthetic, environmental, cultural and social value to the community, towns like Yamba at the mouth of the Clarence River often get sucked into responding in terms of the degree to which overdevelopment within long established urban precincts impacts on property ie., loss, damage and/or reduced amenity.
It's understandable. Like many other coastal towns, a good many Yamba residents are home and/or business property owners themselves.
However, this conversation needs to be firmly turned away from an almost bloodless actuarial view of potential property losses and a new thread has to enter the argument - risk to the life, health and wellbeing of the town population on a individual and collective level.
Because is not just property or lifestyle that will be affected as the climate change risks increase.
Therefore, all three tiers of government as well as property developers and those contracted to assist the progress of their development applications, need to be forced to face the potential for loss of life, injury and chronic illness if they proceed with political agendas and commercial aspirations on a 'business as usual basis'.
Yamba, along with the entire east coast of Australia, is facing a rising level of risk because:
Australia's climate is now on average 1.44°C(± 0.24°C) hotter than it was in 1910 with 1.0°C of this rise occurring since 1960;
the surface waters of the ocean which forms the eastern border of the town are becoming warmer;
the East Australia Current has increased in speed moving further down the NSW coast;
wave patterns have changed and waves breaking on local beaches and estuary soft shorelines are more erosive;
sea-level rise has commenced;
season of the year patterns are changing;
adverse weather events are becoming a fact of life;
and Yamba can no longer boast that it has one of the best climate systems in the world.
Floods now move through the Lower Clarence River estuary on average once every three years with some intervals between floods being much shorter than that and, out of control bushfires driven by high winds have proven that the town is not immune to the threat of fire. East-Coast Lows batter the town during adverse weather events.
During such events - especially flood events - Yamba can be cut off from the wider Clarence Valley for days to weeks and experience disruptions to its food and medicine supply chains.
To date there is not one piece of state legislation, regulation or instrument which guarantees that ALL these risks are taken into consideration whenever a development application is lodged and progressed to the point of denial or consent.
Every battle against inappropriate development in coastal towns like Yamba has to be fought on a case by case basis and, again like Yamba, fought in towns whose topographies are being reshaped time and time again with no overarching understanding on the part of decisionmakers of potential consequences of their actions.
When Yamba asks local government about safety in times of natural disaster it holds aloft a leaflet with a cry of "Nothing to worry about!" or words to that effect. Then tells residents that they should either 'self evacuate' (leave town ahead of its one road to the outside world being cut), 'shelter in place' (stay at home), go to stay with unspecified family or friends on the only high ground in the town - Pilot Hill with its mix of approx. 200 private and holiday rental dwellings clustered either side of three streets. Alternatively residents are told they could make their way to the ‘evacuation centre’, a low-lying local bowling club where an unspecified person/s will record their details but seemingly do little else.
So knowing that Yamba is vulnerable to almost the full suite of climate change risks - risks being exacerbated right now by inappropriate large scale development consents - who in this small town surrounded on all sides by bodies of water might be the most vulnerable?
How does Yamba bring this range of personal vulnerability to the notice of those overly complacent federal, state and local government decision makers?
A Brief Outline of Demographic Characteristics Which Potentially Indicate Vulnerable Persons within the town boundaries of Yamba, NSW, during an Adverse Weather Event caused by Bushfire or Riverine Flooding which may be intensified by Ocean Storm Surge or Stormwater Inundation.
Based on data collected by Australian Bureau of Statistics on CENSUS NIGHT, 10 August 2021, spatial information from id.com.au and Yamba Floodplain Risk Management Study 2008.
Yamba township is approx. 16.92 sq. kilometres in area with a current population density of 376.9 persons per sq. kilometre.
At all times there is one road acting as access and egress for the Yamba resident population and it is a designated evacuation route in times of bushfire or flood. This road along its length is at its lowest point 1.4mAHD and highest point 2mAHD. Note: Australian Height Datum (AHD) expressed as mAHD indicates height in metres above mean sea level.
There are recognised difficulties to safe evacuation in and from Yamba in times of Lower Clarence River flooding:
“These are likely to be high on account of:
• the distance to high ground,
• Yamba Road will be cut early making access difficult,
• the roads will quickly be inundated by up to 1 m depth or
greater,
• the emergency services (SES, Police) will be “stretched”
answering calls throughout the area.”
[Webb, McKeown & Associates, October 2008]
Three significant flood ways taking water from the southern sections of the town to the Clarence River are now either partially built upon, impeded by poorly designed infrastructure or in the process of being blocked by hectares of new land fill.
There are within Yamba:
est. 2,747 occupied residential dwellings housing 6,405 men, women & children;
est. 875 lone person households in Yamba & another 1,191 two-person family households;
est. 273 lone parent households;
at least 136 residential dwellings with no car;
est. 625 households without an internet connection at the dwelling. Note: Based on 2016 Census data as this question was not asked in Census 2021.
est. 758 private dwellings being rented, excluding holiday rentals;
est. 49 social housing properties being rented – 17 freestanding houses, 32 townhouses/duplex units;
On the basis of vulnerable age groupings:
(i) 830 children aged between 0-14 years of age
(ii) 2,414 adults aged between 65-100+ years of age;
On the basis of self-reported chronic health conditions:
2,482 persons with between 1 and 3 or more chronic conditions, including
(i) est. 71 children between 0-14 years of age with one or two health conditions
(ii) est. 200 adults aged between 65-85+ years of age with between one and three or more chronic health conditions:
Note: the range of long-term health conditions include but are not restricted to arthritis, asthma, cancer, dementia, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, lung conditions, stroke and mental health.
On basis of possible inability to finance their own self-evacuation:
402 households with weekly family incomes of $0-$499 dollars, including
(i) est. 105 family households
(ii) est. 302 lone person & group households;
the est. 300-1,000+ visitors staying in the town's hotel, motels, caravan parks, holiday rental accommodation who may be unfamiliar with the topography or road network in Yamba if/when required to seek safe shelter.
A word Premier Perrottet.....
Mr. Perrott, when heavy rainfall and major to extreme flooding events occurred earlier this year in the Northern Rivers region from Clarence Valley to the Qld-NSW border, members of your government - including yourself - called much of what happened "an unprecedented event, an unprecedented situation".
But that is not really an accurate description is it?
It was a predictable event and a predicted situation.
Time and time again the United Nations has warned Australia that it was going to be the first continent to face the full force of climate change impacts. Successive NSW state governments have been aware of the rising level of risk since the 1990s.
You have been a member of the NSW Division of the Liberal Party since 2002, a member of the NSW Parliament and a member of the NSW Coalition Government since March 2011 and, a minister in that government since April 2014. You were NSW Treasurer for 4 years, 8 months, 6 days and went on to be state premier these last eleven months.
I have never heard anyone suggest that you were someone of limited intelligence. So there is no way you had not noted the increased risk of coastal erosion, bushfire and flood along the 1,973km long and 100km wide NSW mainland coastal zone, particularly in the last two decades.
However, like many in positions of power before you Mr. Perrottet, you have ignored the situation and refused to face the issue of what that meant in terms of physical protection of the population. Or confronted the need to instigate reforms to land use as well as to planning legislation, regulations and instruments, in order to better reflect the circumstances of a society living in a changing climate.
As premier your electorate is the entire state. It's long past time you started to genuinely represent all those most vulnerable to climate change induced fire, storm and flood in that very large electorate - not just the NSW Liberal Party, foreign investors, big business, land speculators, property developers, political donors and your deeply suspect coalition partner, the NSW Nationals.
BRIEF BACKGROUND
A handful of not so fun facts for Yamba residents
Matters that state government, local government and regional planning panels should consider (but more often barely notice in passing) before granting consent for large scale residential developments along the NSW coastal zone.
Take Yamba for instance, bounded by the Clarence River estuary and Pacific Ocean...
Probable Maximum Flood (PMF). The largest flood that could conceivably be expected to occur at a particular location, usually estimated from probable maximum precipitation. The PMF defines the maximum extent of flood prone land, that is, the floodplain.
[NEW SOUTH WALES STATE FLOOD PLAN GLOSSARY , February 2018]
“Evacuation
1. Reliable access for pedestrians or vehicles required during a 100 year flood to a publicly accessible location above the PMF”
[RESIDENTIAL ZONES DEVELOPMENT CONTROL PLAN, effective from 23 Dec 2011 , FLOODPLAIN MANAGEMENT CONTROLS, LOWER CLARENCE RIVER FLOODPLAIN, YAMBA FLOODPLAIN & OTHER FLOODPLAINS]......
Approach to Yamba Bowling Club for most of Yamba population will be blocked by 1-in-100yr Flood at 2.09-2.2m & Extreme Flood at 3.56-3.68m. [https://maps.clarence.nsw.gov.au/intramaps97/]
In both flood types Yamba will be isolated from the wider Clarence Valley by floodwaters for a matter of days or weeks....
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