Equipment failure causes park flooding

The failure of pumping equipment was a reason for recent flooding at Wangaratta's Merriwa Park, water that surrounded the kindergarten grounds and inundated several tennis courts. The Ovens River peaked at 12.58m on 4 July, just below major flood level (12.7m), following four days of heavy rain totalling about 85mm in Wangaratta, including 28.2mm on 30 June, and 16mm, 19.8mm and 20.8mm from 1-3 July. Sections of flooding occurred around Christopher Robin Kindergarten and across tennis courts and council confirmed this week that it was partly caused by the failure of one of the pipes at the pump station. High rainfall and river levels in 2022 caused similar flooding at the park and high levels of ground water were attributed as a reason then. In 2022 council received $3.5 million (GST exclusive) in funding via the Department of Environment Land Water and Planning (DELWP), National Flooding Mitigation Infrastructure Program to upgrade the flood levees at three locations - Wilson Road, Merriwa Park and Parfitt Road. During the tender phase of the project the levee at Merriwa Park was removed from the scope and this was be tendered again at a later stage. In June 2023 council received $1,569,116 from the federal government’s Disaster Ready Fund to upgrade the existing levee bank at Merriwa Park - to cope with severe flood events - and upgrade the pump station. Council director of community and infrastructure Marcus Goonan said the proposed levee bank works aim to increase the height of the bank and are not related to the recent flooding. "These works remain on hold pending further return on investment analysis," he said. Meanwhile, flooding at Apex Park has subsided after water fully submerged the colloquial flood gauge - playground equipment, 'Yogi'. SES responded to 22 requests for assistance, mainly fallen trees during the four-day deluge. In the year to date, 405.4mm of rain has been recorded at the Bureau of Meteorology's Wangaratta Aero weather station.

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