Rockhampton Fitzroy River rowing venue may need yearly dredging, expert says
Plans to reroute and dredge Rockhampton’s Fitzroy River for the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games will require major spending stretching well beyond 2032 to maintain it as an elite competition venue, according to a top expert on river flows.
News Corp said on Tuesday that the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority’s feasibility study of the proposed route found the river would need to be widened and dredged to ensure a fair route in 2032.
Although achievable, the plans would require widening a section of the Fitzroy River above the Rockhampton CBD to accommodate the 2,120 meters long and 110 meters wide site.
Professor David Hamilton, director of Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute, said the $400 million cost reported by News Corp seemed “a bit conservative” to him.
Hamilton said for any dredging to be effective it would need to happen as close as possible to the start of the 2032 Games, and that the course would likely need to be dredged once a year indefinitely to maintain it as an elite venue for Rockhampton.
In rowing competitions, uneven riverbeds can create physical inconsistencies in water displacement and resistance, giving one lane an unfair advantage over another.
“Fitzroy carries a tremendous amount of sediment, and that sediment is displaced every year, especially during floods; it is cleared, deposited, re-deposited, etc.,” Hamilton said. he said.
“There is no guarantee that the dredging operation, even if carried out very quickly and just before the Olympics, will look the same in terms of the river bed as the operation that may occur shortly after, especially in the event of a major flood.
“So what you are dealing with is an ongoing operation.”
Hamilton said narrowing a section would be “risky business” and would have impacts on the flow of the river downstream towards the center of Rockhampton.
“There’s a good reason why rivers meander — it’s a naturally occurring thing — and those meanders are part of the natural river process,” he said.
“Straightening means that river speeds do not slow down to the same extent, even though they are relatively equal due to dredging.
“I predict there will be a tremendous effort to control sediment, which is not easy in a river system when you are dredging the bed, cleaning the banks of the river.
“As a result you can end up with a lot more sediment downstream, which is not insignificant, not insignificant at all.”
Deputy Prime Minister Jarrod Bleijie, who is spearheading the Crisafulli government’s push to host rowing in Rockhampton, was asked for comment.
Earlier Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Brent Mickelberg said the government was committed to implementing the plan.
“We are 100 per cent committed to ensuring rowing is back in Rockhampton in 2032,” he said.
Hamilton said he expected the Commonwealth to participate, but a spokesman for Environment Minister Murray Watt said the plan was unlikely to need federal environmental approval.
The City of Moreton Bay has proposed a permanent flatwater facility at a decommissioned Boral pit in Lawnton that would allow backwater racing.
Queensland rowers have backed Moreton Bay plans that Mayor Peter Flannery says will cost taxpayers $150 million.
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