Flood Warning Systems - Swamp-Fishery Creek & Cessnock Urban Area

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Consultation has concluded

Picture of proposed flood warning system that has been installed in the Dungog area

Cessnock City Council won grant funding to install Flood Warning Systems for Swamp-Fishery Creek and the Cessnock Urban Area. This is a space for information and discussion around the project.

Overview of Project

Council was recently successful in receiving grant funding from the Department of Planning & Environment (DPE) to install flood warning system infrastructure within the Cessnock Local Government Area (LGA).

Flash flood siren alerting systems are proposed to be installed at four locations including:

  • Elizabeth St , Abermain
  • Thomas Fell Park, Weston
  • Mount View Park, Cessnock
  • Short Street, Cessnock

Additional flood warning infrastructure including water level gauges to monitor creek levels in concrete stormwater channels and an automated rainfall gauge at Kearsley are also proposed to be installed.

Council will own the infrastructure and facilitate maintenance arrangements. Council and SES will be notified of any alarms and will have remote access to operate the flood warning systems.

Overall Project Purpose

The purpose of the proposed flood warning infrastructure is to protect life and property by alerting residents that live near high risk flash flood locations of rising creek levels, and to inform Council and emergency service organisations prior to, and during flood events.

Community Information Sessions

There are scheduled Community Information Sessions to find out more information, raise concerns and ask questions to the project team. If you would like to attend the sessions, please RSVP here.


Cessnock CBD

Monday 5th September 2022

4pm - 7pm Cessnock Civic Indoor Sports Centre

105 Mt View Road

Cessnock 2325


Weston/Abermain

Tuesday 6th September 2022

4pm - 7pm - Weston Civic Centre

Unit 28/30 Second St

Weston NSW 2326


Image of Flood Warning System courtesy of Aquamonix



Cessnock City Council won grant funding to install Flood Warning Systems for Swamp-Fishery Creek and the Cessnock Urban Area. This is a space for information and discussion around the project.

Overview of Project

Council was recently successful in receiving grant funding from the Department of Planning & Environment (DPE) to install flood warning system infrastructure within the Cessnock Local Government Area (LGA).

Flash flood siren alerting systems are proposed to be installed at four locations including:

  • Elizabeth St , Abermain
  • Thomas Fell Park, Weston
  • Mount View Park, Cessnock
  • Short Street, Cessnock

Additional flood warning infrastructure including water level gauges to monitor creek levels in concrete stormwater channels and an automated rainfall gauge at Kearsley are also proposed to be installed.

Council will own the infrastructure and facilitate maintenance arrangements. Council and SES will be notified of any alarms and will have remote access to operate the flood warning systems.

Overall Project Purpose

The purpose of the proposed flood warning infrastructure is to protect life and property by alerting residents that live near high risk flash flood locations of rising creek levels, and to inform Council and emergency service organisations prior to, and during flood events.

Community Information Sessions

There are scheduled Community Information Sessions to find out more information, raise concerns and ask questions to the project team. If you would like to attend the sessions, please RSVP here.


Cessnock CBD

Monday 5th September 2022

4pm - 7pm Cessnock Civic Indoor Sports Centre

105 Mt View Road

Cessnock 2325


Weston/Abermain

Tuesday 6th September 2022

4pm - 7pm - Weston Civic Centre

Unit 28/30 Second St

Weston NSW 2326


Image of Flood Warning System courtesy of Aquamonix



Consultation has concluded

A space for you to ask direct questions to the project team.

  • Share Has there been a consideration for also cleaning out this creek after years of a proposal being submitted to Council. Seems like no movement, and cleaning out waste, vegetation and noxious weeds might assist along with a good dredging of the silt that has built up. Also, in placing these alarms, and in what has been suggested now classified as a flood prone area, are you aware of what potential implications there now to home building, contents and garaging of cars. A flyer and a FB post offering a community seminar perhaps should have been widely distributed before implementing what is a financial impact to residence with no regard for cleaning council property which is the underlying problem on Facebook Share Has there been a consideration for also cleaning out this creek after years of a proposal being submitted to Council. Seems like no movement, and cleaning out waste, vegetation and noxious weeds might assist along with a good dredging of the silt that has built up. Also, in placing these alarms, and in what has been suggested now classified as a flood prone area, are you aware of what potential implications there now to home building, contents and garaging of cars. A flyer and a FB post offering a community seminar perhaps should have been widely distributed before implementing what is a financial impact to residence with no regard for cleaning council property which is the underlying problem on Twitter Share Has there been a consideration for also cleaning out this creek after years of a proposal being submitted to Council. Seems like no movement, and cleaning out waste, vegetation and noxious weeds might assist along with a good dredging of the silt that has built up. Also, in placing these alarms, and in what has been suggested now classified as a flood prone area, are you aware of what potential implications there now to home building, contents and garaging of cars. A flyer and a FB post offering a community seminar perhaps should have been widely distributed before implementing what is a financial impact to residence with no regard for cleaning council property which is the underlying problem on Linkedin Email Has there been a consideration for also cleaning out this creek after years of a proposal being submitted to Council. Seems like no movement, and cleaning out waste, vegetation and noxious weeds might assist along with a good dredging of the silt that has built up. Also, in placing these alarms, and in what has been suggested now classified as a flood prone area, are you aware of what potential implications there now to home building, contents and garaging of cars. A flyer and a FB post offering a community seminar perhaps should have been widely distributed before implementing what is a financial impact to residence with no regard for cleaning council property which is the underlying problem link

    Has there been a consideration for also cleaning out this creek after years of a proposal being submitted to Council. Seems like no movement, and cleaning out waste, vegetation and noxious weeds might assist along with a good dredging of the silt that has built up. Also, in placing these alarms, and in what has been suggested now classified as a flood prone area, are you aware of what potential implications there now to home building, contents and garaging of cars. A flyer and a FB post offering a community seminar perhaps should have been widely distributed before implementing what is a financial impact to residence with no regard for cleaning council property which is the underlying problem

    Concerned Resident asked over 2 years ago

    Thanks for reaching out to us!


    The Swamp Creek catchment upstream of the township of Abermain is in the order of 50 km2 (5,000 Hectares), and at Weston, the catchment size is in the order of 70 km2 (7,000 Hectares). Due to the sheer size of these catchments combined with other complexities including backwater caused by either the flattening of the terrain downstream of Weston and / or backwater from the Hunter River floodplains, there are limited feasible options available to mitigate flood impacts. For these reasons, it is considered that creek maintenance and clearing activities will have minimal benefit in terms of minimising flood impacts during significant flood events.

    Additionally accessing creeks for maintenance purposes can be complex due to various reasons such as the ability to safely access creeks and ownership issues, e.g. Council does not own all land parcels through which creeks traverse and the land can be privately owned, Crown Lands owned or Council owned.

    In regards to classification of flood prone lands within the subject areas, flood studies that were prepared previously identified that there is significant flood risk at Abermain and Weston. This is not recently determined information. All adopted Council flood studies are publicly available. 

    Link to Council's adopted flood studies

    To view online flood related data for the Cessnock LGA:

    Go to: https://www.cessnock.nsw.gov.au/Plan-and-build/Planning/Online-mapping

    Select the IntraMaps button

    Select “I agree to Terms & Conditions”

    Select Launch Intramaps (it might take a minute to launch IntraMaps)

    On the left side of the screen select Flood Data (this shows the 1 in 100 year Flood, Peak Flood & Flood Planning Area extents) – again, please be patient as it may take a minute to launch

    Zoom into any area of interest


    We’d be happy to talk more if you would like to come along to the Community Session, where we’ll have all the flood mapping to go through together. 


    Regards,


    Project team.