BoM move to axe free flood warning tool has ‘potentially deadly consequences’, Queensland councils say | Queensland

Natural disaster-prone councils in south-east Queensland say the Bureau of Meteorology’s decision to cancel its free real-time flood forecasting tool is a “cost-shifting” exercise with “potentially fatal consequences”, with New South Wales emergency services also affected.

For nearly 30 years, BoM has been providing local governments, emergency services and water managers across the country with free access to Enviromon, a tool used to inform emergency warning systems that collect, display and analyze data from rainfall and river level indicators to predict floods.

But the bureau will end ongoing support and maintenance of the service for external users by July, replacing it with a US-developed software program called OneRain, which cannot be sub-licensed and therefore cannot be provided free of charge to councils and other public bodies.

While rainfall and river level data can still be accessed on the BoM’s website and organizations can sign up to receive updates, these will be sent at 15-minute intervals rather than the current five-minute intervals that Enviromon provides.

Brisbane City council is among those who say a 10-minute delay is unacceptable in the potentially life-threatening flash floods that regularly hit the local government area of ​​more than 1.3 million people. The council is exploring supplying its own software, which it estimates could cost $500,000 to install, excluding ongoing subscriptions.

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Brisbane City council’s environment chair Tracy Davis said the “reckless and dangerous” change would end vital access to real-time flood data and called on the federal government to intervene.

“Deactivating this service to municipalities could mean the end of stream alerts and put lives at risk,” Davis said.

“This is a cost shift that could have potentially fatal consequences.”

When asked to respond to the council’s concerns, a BoM spokesperson said: “Flood warning data information will continue to be published free of charge on the bureau’s website.”

“Under the Meteorological Act 1955, the Bureau of Meteorology provides river flood forecasts and warnings across Australia. Flash flood warnings are the responsibility of local and state government,” the statement said.

Gold Coast City council estimated the cost of replacing Enviromon at around $600,000 over five years.

Mayor Tom Tate called on the federal government to cover these costs because “BoM is a responsibility of the state.”

“We are doing our part, but we need all levels of government to continue funding critical disaster management infrastructure,” he said.

Queensland Local Government Association chief executive Alison Smith called on the BoM to “deliver an equivalent regeneration service” to local governments across the state.

“As weather events become more frequent and severe, it doesn’t make sense for a service that taxpayers are already funding to charge for emergency information,” Smith said.

“BoM has an essential role as the national provider of publicly available weather and environmental information.”

Unlike Queensland, where flood warnings are the responsibility of local government, in New South Wales this task falls to the State Emergency Service.

A NSW SES spokesman said the organization was using the Enviromon software and was “working with the bureau as we transition to alternative arrangements”.

A Victoria SES spokesman said he had not used Enviromon.

The BoM said Enviromon no longer met “basic standards of cybersecurity, stability and resilience required by the flood forecasting and warning system.”

“As a result, the Bureau is engaging with external users to support them through the transition,” the spokesperson said. “Individual user needs will determine the option that works best for them.”

The software change will not only affect local governments. Seqwater, which manages dams and reservoirs in south-east Queensland and works in flood mitigation, including the release of water in times of flood, uses Enviromon but is now trialling a product from the company behind OneRain instead.

Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt’s office referred questions to the BoM.

The controversy over Enviromon comes as BoM faces another storm of criticism over its new $86 million website. The bureau apologized for the redesign last month and promised to make changes after Watt said the website “did not meet the expectations of many users.”

Shadow Emergency Management Minister Ross Cadell said: “Following the failure of the website for such a large sum of money, we have concerns about the internal processes for checking and validating any technology the BoM seeks to implement.”

Cadell said the BoM should make sub-licensing to councils and dependent bodies a pre-condition of its agreement as it seeks to replace Enviromon.

OneRain Australia director James Logan said Enviromon was no longer a “viable platform”. Writing more than 30 years ago, he said that older versions of Microsoft Windows that were insecure and unable to meet modern requirements were necessary.

Logan said councils, including other private companies, had a variety of options and his was just one option.

“Overall, it’s good to have a process that allows everyone to update to new software that has more capability than Enviromon has,” he said.