A not so well-known bard once remarked that one cannot learn the lessons of the future until you thoroughly know and accept the history of the past.

These prophetic words came to mind when I attended a recent meeting in Yamba and most of the people present were relative newcomers to our town.

I soon realised they had not experienced the original fears suffered by most local ratepayers over the then first attempts to develop our controversial floodplain areas for new housing purposes.

In addition to this situation, some people in high places were recently heard claiming that the development of the floodplain had originally been welcomed by our ratepaying public in direct contradiction to “the fuss of recent months.”

As a result of these two situations, I thought it best today to go back over 24 years in time to a little before the turn of the present century when a majority of Yamba’s then 6,000 population warned that any floodplain development of any description would cause serious problems in the future, similar to the flood which subsequentially occurred only a couple of years ago.

It was, in fact, in the late 1990s when Maclean Shire Council, the forerunner to our present amalgamated Clarence Valley Council (which controls Yamba, Angourie and Wooloweyah districts), first revealed that it was planning a major floodplain residential development for an additional 4,400 residents.

This was on top of the fact that the Shire Council’s agenda was to encourage 600 more dwellings to be built in the Yamba CBD and on Yamba Hill.

In addition to the obvious threat of future possible flooding and the further associated increase in Yamba’s population, a private developer at the time was already well on the way to completing 344 new homes at Pippie Beach in addition to a new resort being built on the Yamba-Angourie Road.

Following the 1996 official State census, Yamba and its two satellite suburbs had a total population of 5,500 ratepayers and 500 renters. On hearing the Shire Council news, most of these people became very restive and vocal — and decried any thought that Yamba should lose its vital floodplain which had always acted as an emergency reservoir for riverine flood waters encroaching — and possibly flooding — the town.

In my capacity as secretary of the Yamba Angourie and Wooloweyah Community Association (YAWCA), I was inundated by townspeoples’ fears for the future should we suffer excessive rains, a major cyclonic event or even a tsunami affecting the Clarence area, and particularly the construction of homes on the town’s floodplain and wetlands.

As a result of this widespread public reaction, YAWCA held various public meetings, undertook major research into the floodplain threat and also ran and was party to two surveys seeking our fellow citizens’ considered views on the subject.

A senior YAWCA executive also accompanied me to a meeting of the then N.S.W. Carr Government Cabinet which met in the Evans’ Head High School as part of its programme to take the decisions of Macquarie Street into regional areas.

On this occasion, YAWCA delivered a special document of protest to the State Government after also having written serious letters to each Cabinet Minister whose hard copy replies are still with me and, in some cases, also defy any knowledge of our Clarence River’s past flooding history.

In another address to the Shire Council on behalf of our various members and Yamba ratepayers in general, I outlined the results of our professional research together with the considered views of a wide cross-section of people in the town.

From one of these surveys alone, we received written support from well over one thousand ratepaying families, representing at least double that number of people, for the non-acceptance of any floodplain housing development plans in addition to hundreds of vocal complaints and various ratepayers’ letters to the editor.

In short, we provided the Shire Council with technical evidence from a number of experts that any floodplain development would cause Clarence River floodwaters to be diverted from the floodplain wetlands to cause flood threats and damage to vulnerable sections of Yamba, including along Yamba Road, within the Industrial Estate, throughout Wooli Street and into the caravan park, with an allied threat to the Bowling Club.

Interestingly, shortly after this in March 2001, floodwaters from the Clarence River provided a one-in-thirty-year flood event and the then fourth largest flood on record.

It caused a major State of Emergency for Yamba after it had cut the main traffic artery along Yamba Road, encroached onto many private properties and had spilled into the caravan park, as forecast. At its peak, the water levels upstream at Maclean rose to over 3.2 metres.

As we all know, the more recent flooding of Yamba was even more serious with the Coles shopping centre also being affected and various adjoining homes and businesses being damaged or at least seriously threatened.

I can also still remember Ian Dinham, a professional engineer and head of the Clarence River County Council, officially advising Maclean Shire that, should the floodplain be built on, Yamba’s main street would eventually be inundated together with most dwellings constructed before the 1989 landfill requirements for home construction

The final word on this subject should possibly go to Professor B. Thom, a former chairman of the N.S.W. Coastal Council. In a written document to Maclean Shire Council, this highly acclaimed authority on coastal development also warned that the Shire’s “biggest problem for all time is its determination and desire for major urban expansion on low-lying floodplain land which will dramatically make an impact into the indefinite future of the town’s infrastructure, its services, the great potential risk to life and property as well as to its village atmosphere.”

Although it is now too late to unscramble the floodplain house construction omelette, it behoves all those interested in further developing Yamba’s housing market to make a more detailed study of history which all too often has the habit of repeating itself.