Natural disaster-prone councils in south-east Queensland say the Bureau of Meteorology\u2019s decision to axe its free real-time flood forecasting tool is a \u201ccost shifting\u201d exercise with \u201cpotentially deadly consequences\u201d, with New South Wales emergency services also affected.<\/p>\n
For nearly 30 years, the BoM has provided local governments, emergency services and water managers around the country with free access to Enviromon \u2013 a tool used to inform emergency alert systems which collects, displays and analyses data from rainfall and river level gauges for flood forecasting.<\/p>\n
But the bureau will end ongoing support and maintenance of that service for external users by July and replace it with a US-developed software program called OneRain, which cannot be sublicensed \u2013 and so cannot be provided free to councils and other public bodies.<\/p>\n
While rainfall and river level data can still be accessed via BoM\u2019s website and organisations can register to receive updates, these would be sent through in 15-minute intervals, as opposed to the current five-minute intervals provided with Enviromon.<\/p>\n
Brisbane City council is among those which deem that 10-minute lag unacceptable in the potentially life-threatening situation of flash flooding, which regularly strikes the local government area of more than 1.3 million people. It is exploring procuring its own software \u2013 which the council estimates could cost $500,000 to set up, not including ongoing subscriptions.<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n Brisbane City council\u2019s environment chair, Tracy Davis, said the \u201creckless and dangerous\u201d change would end vital access to real-time flood data and called on the federal government to intervene.<\/p>\n \u201cScrapping this service to councils could mean the end of creek alerts and leave lives at risk,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is cost shifting with potentially deadly consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked to respond to the council\u2019s concerns, a spokesperson for the BoM said: \u201cFlood warning data information will continue to be published for free on the bureau\u2019s website\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder the Meteorology Act 1955, the Bureau of Meteorology provides riverine flood forecasts and warnings across Australia. Flash flood warnings are a local and state government responsibility,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n The Gold Coast City council estimated the cost of replacing Enviromon at about $600,000 over five years.<\/p>\n Its mayor, Tom Tate, called on the federal government to meet those costs as \u201cthe BoM is a commonwealth responsibility\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are doing our bit but we need all levels of government to continue to fund critical disaster management infrastructure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Local Government Association of Queensland<\/a> chief executive officer, Alison Smith, called on BoM to \u201cprovide an equivalent replacement service\u201d to local governments across the state.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe it simply does not make sense that a service taxpayers have already funded wants to charge for emergency information,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe BoM has a core role as a national provider of public weather and environmental information.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike in Queensland, where flood warnings are the responsibility of local government, in New South Wales that role falls to the State Emergency Service.<\/p>\n A NSW SES spokesperson said the organisation used Enviromon software and was \u201cworking with the ureau as we transition to alternative arrangements\u201d.<\/p>\n A Victorian SES spokesperson said it did not use Enviromon.<\/p>\n BoM said Enviromon no longer met \u201cbasic cybersecurity, stability and resilience standards required of a flood forecast and warning system\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a result, the Bureau has been engaging with external users to support them through the transition,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cThe individual user requirements will determine the option that works best for them.\u201d<\/p>\n The software change will not just affect local government. Seqwater \u2013 which manages dams and reservoirs in south-east Queensland and works in flood mitigation, including the release of water during times of flood \u2013 uses Enviromon but is now trialling a product by the company behind OneRain as a replacement.<\/p>\n The office of the federal environment minister, Murray Watt, referred questions to BoM.<\/p>\n The controversy over Enviromon comes as the BoM faced another storm of criticism<\/a> over its new $86m website. The Bureau apologised for the handling of the redesign<\/a> last month and promised to make changes after Watt said the website was \u201cnot meeting many users\u2019 expectations\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter failures such as the website for such a high amount of money, we have concerns about the internal processes of checking and validating any technology BoM seeks to roll out,\u201d the shadow emergency management minister, Ross Cadell, said.<\/p>\n Cadell said BoM should have made sublicensing to councils and dependent organisations a precondition of its contract when looking to replace Enviromon.<\/p>\n OneRain Australia director James Logan said Enviromon was no longer \u201ca viable platform\u201d. Written over 30 years ago, he said it required outdated versions of Microsoft Windows that were insecure and could not meet modern requirements.<\/p>\n Logan said the councils had several choices, including other private companies, and that his was just one option.<\/p>\n \u201cIn general, it\u2019s a good thing that there is a process to get everybody to update to some new software that has more capability than Enviromon has,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Natural disaster-prone councils in south-east Queensland say the Bureau of Meteorology\u2019s decision to axe its free real-time flood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-129357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}