Ship lift for Darwin, no major flood project for Alice

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The NT Government is full steam ahead with the Darwin ship lift, whose expected cost has ballooned from $100m in 2015 to $820m, but Alice Springs will have to go cap in hand to Canberra if it wants a structure saving the town's centre from annihilation in a major flood.

The NT governments over a decade and a half, CLP and ALP, are still using the WRM Water & Environment report of 2011 as the Bible for action, summarised in the current fact sheet.

They have done nothing substantial to control catastrophic floods.

The Department of Lands, Planning and Environment, with Braitling MLA Joshua Burgoyne as its Minister, says all assessments recommended in the Alice Springs Flood Mitigation Report "have been actioned".

What that means is unclear because a statement yesterday from DLPE and the Department of Logistics and Infrastructure discloses: “Rectification works to address immediate drainage issues are scheduled to commence in 2026.”

And that doesn’t include the big measures, buck-passed to Canberra, making them "subject to future funding opportunities through Commonwealth programs”.

These multi million dollar projects are a dam wall across the Todd River north of the Overland Telegraph Station; an absurd fly-over through the Heavitree Gap, one of the town's most iconic landmarks; and a tunnel through the western side of the rages for road and rail, that can be used for channelling Todd water in the event of major floods.

These are rare but getting more ferocious with climate change, as the current events in Katherine show.

The tunnel would allow the widening of the creek though The Gap, returning it to its impressive natural state.

This proposal may be less of a sacred site controversy than some fear: Traditional custodians have given their consent for several communications towers at the top of the range.

The Alice Springs News examined the tunnel option in May 2018, quoting the Queensland chairman of the Australasian Tunnel Society, Harry Asche. We understand a tunnel has been discussed informally at that time by town council members.

The fact sheet based on the 15 year old WRM report presents five options, the preferred one reducing flooding for up to 386 residential and commercial properties in the East Side, Braitling and Gillen.

It would improve existing trunk drainage, "reprofile" and increase the capacity of the East Side and the North Stuart Highway drains; include new bund works for the East Side drain, instal new culverts under the Stuart Highway to receive greater flows from the North Stuart Highway drain and construct a cut off drain and bund for problem areas along the Lovegrove drain.

PHOTO: The Gap flooded in 1988.