The Advisory Group met in February and, not surprisingly, the flood damage was the major agenda item. Before we went out to inspect a little of the damage, Dave explained some of the complexities involved in establishing priorities for recovery work. For example: some roads are Parks responsibility, some are shire responsibilities – and there are 4 shires involved – , and three are VicRoads. The road to Mt William is a PV road, but is needed for access to the communication towers. So that access was very high priority (via Redman Rd,as the bridges on the Vicroads Dunkeld road were so badly damaged). Roses Gap Rd is a Northern Grampians Shire Rd, so the parking for the Beehive Falls walk is their responsibility. Halls Gap to Mt Zero Rd (Bolte Highway) is a PV responsibility, so although the shires would love to see it upgraded, all the costs would come out of our meagre budget. And this recovery work is so expensive! Even producing a map of the landslips cost over $5,000. PV has insurance, but it falls far short of what will be needed. There’s an excess of $500,000 for each event – and there have been 3 events – and it covers replacement only. So for instance, the Silverband Falls walking track bridge was about 20 metres long.; the new bridge will have to be 60 metres.
On a positive note, we were pleased to hear that the letter we sent after our December meeting, deploring the failure to replace Mike Stevens as Natural Values Team Leader, had had the desired result and an appointment had been made. (see Welcome to Ryan Duffy on p2).