Gippsland farmers experience floods, fires within days of each others

Farmers across Gippsland have welcomed the unusual spring deluge with some gauges receiving more than 160 millimetres in a 36-hour period last week.

For primary producers like Mr Dwyer and his wife Connie, the unexpected spring rainfall has aided farmgate confidence heading into summer, particularly on the back of the Bureau of Meteorology's warning an El Nino is likely to continue until at least February 2024.

However, farmers in the district say the flood, brought on by the release of 58,000 megalitres from Lake Glenmaggie, was a "relatively average flood", and fear what larger releases of water could mean for the area.

"A big flood would be 90,000 megalitres and what happens then," Mr Dwyer asked.

"There needs to be some serious work done on the river between cleaning the vegetation, which has been let grow out of control, and potentially a review of the flow of the water.

"It needs looking at because in a big event, it will put lives at risk."

Mr Dwyer, who milks about 360 Friesian cows, said the release of water from the lake and congestion of the local river systems had changed how farms were affected by floodwater in the last 30 years.

"The river was cleaned completely of willow vegetation 20 years ago, and now we have another completely unnatural scenario where the rivers are completely choked with wattles and blackwoods," he said.

"Over recent years, farmers have pleaded with the West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority to clean it out, and now is the time to do it.

"But of course they are not saying boo at the moment."

Mr Dwyer said he believed the rivers were being "choked" by vegetation which prevented the quick release of water downstream during a flood.

WGCMA chief executive Martin Fuller said understanding flood behaviour was a complex matter.

"We have worked with local landholders and community in the past to review and understand local flood behaviour and will do so following this most recent event," he said.

"Whilst it is tempting to make simple assumptions about cause and effect, previous analysis and modelling done with the community concluded the native vegetation in and around the waterway is not a major influencing factor in flood dynamics, particularly in larger events.

"This work has been shared and discussed with the community."

Ten kilometres down the road at Tinamba, dairy farmers Mat and Amy Daly were still assessing the damage floodwaters made on their property.

About 2.7 kilometres of gravel laneway was badly eroded during the flood.

"I've got no idea in the world what it will cost to repair, but it's not going to be cheap," Mr Daly said.

"The laneways are my biggest concern at the moment going into joining season and mating period starts in a couple of weeks so we need it to be sorted by then.

"With the rock on the laneway, it penetrates the cows hooves and you end up with lame cows all over the place, and it has a snowball effect that ultimately causes a drop in production."

Mr Daly has farmed in the area since 1996 and said the flood was not as significant as the last major event in the area in 2007.

His property received 148mm of rain in 36 hours.

"I'd still call it a major flood, but it affected us in different areas of the property compared to other floods," he said.

"We were prepared and lifted the pumps a few days beforehand."

Despite the wet conditions, Mr Daly said the spring rain had come at the right time.

"We were looking like we could have been out of water around Christmas time and January," he said.

"It's set us up for the season to be honest."

Only days earlier, farmers in other parts of Gippsland were dealing with a completely different emergency - bushfires.

Fires at Briagolong and Loch Sport continue to burn where community advice warnings remain in place, while communities along the Latrobe River downstream of Traralgon and Thomson River downstream of Wandocka remain on flood watch.

Macehill Merinos stud principal Luke Nicholls said an adjoining property to his at Stockdale was on fire when the rain started last week.

"We lost 121 hectares of country, but by Thursday morning we were at 222mm of rain," he said.

"It was a pretty incredible week, to be honest.

"We had a fire within 100 metres of our house, the next morning our front paddock was overflowing, it was pretty incredible."

He said there were no stock losses, although a few boundary fences would require replacement.