By Lilly O’Gorman
POTATO growers are now counting the cost of the worst flood to hit the region since 1971.
Local farmers from Catani, Cora Lynn and Iona said a huge amount of water came gushing over the Bunyip Drain levee bank for 12 hours, sparing no farms on the south side.
The paddocks were under 30 to 40 centimetres of water for a day and a half, and it took weeks to leave.
And it wasn’t just the produce that was ruined. According to the farmers, some families have only just returned to their homes this week.
Now, four months on and almost out the other side of the harvest which was due to be finished last month, the extent of the damage is becoming known.
Bernard Dillon from Iona estimates close to a dozen potato growing families were affected, 8000 to 10,000 tonnes of potatoes were wiped out and up to $8 million lost.
“We grow one crop a year and that crop is gone,” he said.
Melbourne Water issued a statement in February that said Iona received 165mm of rain between 9am on Friday 4 February and 9am on Saturday 5 February; 3.8 times the monthly February average and 16 per cent of the yearly rainfall average.
According to the farmers, it wasn’t the rainfall that did it. The paddocks were dry on Saturday night, but the following night saw the paddocks inundated.
It was the start of the potato harvesting season, which runs from February to May, and fully matured crops were destroyed mere days before they should have been collected.
“That was the hardest thing,” Catani farmer George Lineham said. “Knowing the crop was there in the ground, just rotting away.”
Every potato farmer in the area was affected, but Cora Lynn grower Wayne Tymensen said impacts varied greatly.
“Anything matured at the time was a total write-off,” he said. “Anything young was a write-off. The in-between was salvageable.”
Wayne said that, in some cases, the harvests were returning about one fifteenth of what they would in a normal year.
“People plant anything from three to four tonnes of seed potato per hectare and normally average 35 to 40 tonnes per hectare returned. We’re taking 10-15 tonnes per hectare. And that is in the best paddocks. There are paddocks we won’t even bother going to.”
Frank Rovers had over 2000 tonnes last year, this year just 200.
Last year Bernard Dillon harvested 1500 tonnes, this year he harvested 100 tonnes.
“Our issue is cash flow, because potatoes have a very high input compared to some other crops. All the money has to go out before it comes back in,” he said.
“After so many years growing potatoes, it’s disheartening to lose our working capital and have to borrow money again to keep on going.”
Perhaps the most disheartening part of the position these local farmers and their families find themselves in is the constant feeling that it was a disaster that could have quite easily been prevented.
“I believe that if the drain had been maintained as it should have been, it would’ve coped and the flooding would’ve been minimal,” Bernard continued.
“Melbourne Water took over the management of the drain in 1990 and since then has allowed the trees to grow.”
According to the farmers, the last time the drain was cleared was in 1995. Upgrades to the levee banks in Cora Lynn were due in 2006 and upgrades to the entire area were due to be completed last year.
“It frustrates us, we’re just sitting ducks. We have made comments about getting the trees out of the drain for the last 20 years but they have fallen on deaf ears,” Bernard said.
“The drain still had capacity downstream to hold more water,” George said.
However Melbourne Water maintains that the drainage system coped well with the intense rainfall.
Manager of Waterways South-east Region, David Norman said a review of the drainage system is due by the middle of this year, and includes gathering data and investigating the issue of vegetation in drains.
“The review to date has indicated that the flows we saw as a result of the exceptional February rainfall exceeded the 1-in-15-year flow in the Bunyip Main Drain. The Bunyip Main Drain is designed to withstand up to a 1-in-15-year flow,” Mr Norman said.
