We're nearly there, real mitigation options are finally on the table!
It's time to make our voices count!
Melbourne Water wants YOUR feedback on flood mitigation options.
To the 3,500 of you who signed this petition: this is the moment we've been pushing for.
Melbourne Water's Flood Mitigation Study has released its shortlisted mitigation options and is asking the community two things:
- which combination of options we prefer, and
- how we weigh up the trade-offs.
The decisions made off the back of this consultation will shape whether our community is genuinely protected from the next major flood or left exposed again.
Every one of us needs to respond. Here's what you need to know before you do.
Part 1: Which combination? Support Combination 3.
Three combinations are on the table:
Combination 1 is not mitigation. "Flood resilient homes" shifts the responsibility and the cost onto individual households, while improved flood warning systems are table stakes that should happen regardless. A warning tells you the water is coming. It doesn't stop it entering your home.
Combination 2 takes some real infrastructure a few retarding basins and levees but it's a cut-price version of Combination 3 that leaves a significant number of homes still exposed. If we're going to build, why build half a solution?
Combination 3 is the comprehensive option: a full set of retarding basins plus two levees. It protects the greatest number of homes and delivers the best return on investment. After what our community lived through in October 2022, anything less is not acceptable.
Our recommendation: tell Melbourne Water you support Combination 3.
What's included
•Arundel Retarding Basin (RB70)
•Konagaderra Retarding Basin (RB60)
•Wildwood Retarding Basin (RB65)
•Maribyrnong Township Protection Levee (L030)
•Rivervue Retirement Levee (L010)
•Agency and community flood preparedness (NS60)
•Flood resilient homes and flood proofing (NS15) - Package E (permanent)
•Flood warning system improvements (NS20).
Melbourne Water's Flood Mitigation Explorer Tool is available via the link below, where community feedback can also be submitted. Please note there are two sections requiring your input, as indicated in the image below.
Flood Mitigation Explorer Tool
Part 2: The trade-off Feedback section - don't fall for the framing
The second part of the survey asks you to weigh up trade-offs. Be careful here: the way some of these are structured invites you to talk yourself out of proper protection. Here's our counsel on each.
"Levee height vs local amenity" - this is a false choice
This is the most important one. The framing suggests we must choose between protection and our riverscape that higher levees mean ugly walls, lost views and lost river access. Cities around the world have proven this wrong. Levee design determines amenity, not levee height:
- Hamburg, Germany - The Niederhafen flood barrier along the Elbe protects the city to nearly 9 metres above sea level, and it's one of Hamburg's most loved public spaces: a 625-metre riverside promenade with amphitheatre staircases, cycle lanes, restaurants and kiosks built into the structure itself. It was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects after a competition. Protection and amenity, in one structure.
- Rotterdam, Netherlands - The Dakpark is a kilometre-long dike with shops and parking inside it and one of the largest rooftop parks in the Netherlands on top. The flood defence added green space to the neighbourhood.
- Katwijk, Netherlands - A new coastal flood dike was buried entirely inside a rebuilt dune landscape, complete with walking paths and a hidden 650-space car park. Visitors can't even tell the flood defence is there.
- Tokyo, Japan - "Super levees" along the Arakawa and Sumida rivers use wide, gently sloping embankments that carry parks, walkways and even housing, reconnecting communities with the river rather than walling them off while providing high ground for evacuation in extreme events.
Our counsel: reject the height trade-off. Tell Melbourne Water that height is not the issue design quality is. A well-designed levee can be a terraced riverside promenade, a landscaped embankment, a shared path with river views from the top. What matters is that the community is protected. Ask Melbourne Water to run a design competition or engage landscape architects, as Hamburg did, not to lower the level of protection.
"Local impacts vs wider catchment benefits"
Support catchment-wide benefits. Retarding basins in the upper catchment are how you protect thousands of homes downstream. Impacts on upper catchment land use are real and those communities deserve genuine consultation and fair treatment , but the answer is to design and compensate well, not to leave the floodplain unprotected.
"Higher cost vs remaining flood risk"
Support the higher-protection investment. Don't let this consultation quietly decide the budget before the community has spoken.
The way this trade-off is framed invites us to pre-emptively lower our ambitions on the assumption that the money won't be there. We reject that assumption, and so should you. The Federal Government has already built the funding machinery for exactly this kind of project:
- The Disaster Ready Fund, administered by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), is the Australian Government's flagship disaster resilience program - up to $1 billion over five years, with flood levees explicitly named as the kind of mitigation infrastructure it exists to fund. https://www.nema.gov.au/our-work/key-programs/disaster-ready-fund
- The fund runs in recurring annual rounds (Round Four is underway right now, with Emergency Management Victoria as the lead agency for Victorian projects), and every dollar is matched by state or local contributions.
- Beyond the DRF, every major flood inquiry, including after October 2022 has made the same point: Australia spends overwhelmingly on disaster recovery and a fraction on mitigation, and governments have committed to rebalancing that.
The economics are on our side. Every dollar spent on proper mitigation is spent once; flood recovery costs are paid again and again, after every event, by governments, insurers, you and most of all flood victims. Combination 3 already represents the best ROI of the options presented. "Affordable" options that leave high residual risk aren't cheap they just move the cost onto us.
Here's the key point: this consultation's job is to establish the right solution, not the cheapest one. Funding is the next fight, and it's a fight we can win but only if the community mandate is unambiguous; A clear, loud community preference for Combination 3 is exactly what state and federal governments need to justify a major co-funded investment. A lukewarm, watered-down community preference guarantees a watered-down funding ask. Go for the gold standard, and hold the Federal Government to the mitigation funding it has committed to deliver.
"Speed of delivery vs level of protection"
This is a false either/or. Do both: deliver the quick wins (warning systems, planning changes) immediately and commit now to the major infrastructure. Fast, low-protection options are a complement to retarding basins and levees - never a substitute. The worst outcome is quick options being delivered, declared "job done," and the real infrastructure quietly shelved. Major infrastructure takes 10–15 years - which is exactly why the commitment must be made now, not deferred.
"Scale of intervention vs level of change"
The biggest change to our landscape wasn't infrastructure, it was the 2022 flood itself. Muddy waters through hundreds of homes, ruined parks and sports grounds, months of recovery. Well-designed, larger-scale interventions don't degrade our local area; done properly (see Hamburg, Rotterdam, Tokyo above) they add parkland, paths and public space while protecting us. Support the larger-scale interventions.
What to do now
- Complete the feedback at the Melbourne Water study page, support Combination 3, and on trade-offs, prioritise protection with good design (feedback closes 22nd July)
- Read the Phase 3 handbooks
- Follow the study page so you're notified of the next consultation phases.
- Share this update with neighbours, friends and family in the catchment, every submission counts. 3,500 signatures got us here; 3,500 submissions will be impossible to ignore.
We didn't sign this petition to be consulted into a warning system and a pat on the head. We signed it to stop the Maribyrnong River flooding hundreds of homes. This is our chance to say so, on the record.
Thank you for standing with our community. We're almost there. This is our chance to go down in history as the community that made the Maribyrnong a beacon for what citizen persistence can achieve and government's opportunity to show what delivering on citizen safety looks like, in a world of climate change and eroding political trust.