ACTEW advises they’ve had a bit of bother with their discovery trail at the Cotter (reviewed extensively by this site on its opening in September)
It seems they were unprepared for recent rains and the charming low footbridges haven’t held up.
Flooding caused by a 1 in 15 year rainfall event last weekend damaged the existing footbridge across the Cotter River leading to the new discovery trail.
ACTEW is currently assessing damage and will advise when the facility is again safe for public access.
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What’s Your opinion?
Cotter discovery trail closed for the duration
Heavs said :
Well spotted. It has been there many years but the two large rain events of recent time has not only inundated the bridge but may have caused some structural damage. Those engineers and tradesmen building the dam are going to fix it as soon as possible. Meantime we will explore other options to access the platform
You can see the footbridge from the road. The bridge is still there, the issues seem to be that the river appears to be lapping the bridge. The other issue is the amount of debris stuck on the bridge. I would suspect that the debris can’t be cleared until the river levels drop down & until the debris is cleared, the trail can’t be reopened.
Also, I could do without the frigging “–event” suffix for every type of weather scenario. “..because of the highest rainfall in 15 years” is actually real English. And doesn’t have any useless words.
Funny as it is to pay out on the government, wouldn’t the key word in the release be that it was the ‘existing’ footbridge that suffered the damage. The one that had been there before the trail was put in.
Yeah. Bugger. I wanted to see that.
rogerthat said :
Same, I was thinking it would be worth a look too. Not any more!
Bugger, and I was all set this weekend to go check out this footpath I’d heard so much about.
over engineering does not equal good engineering.
Particularly amusing in light of this comment in the original story:
That’s the most over-engineered “trail” I’ve ever seen.
Apparently it wasn’t over-engineered nearly enough.
What fantastic irony!
The whole point of this exercise is to build a dam to trap and hold more water, but the footpath leading up to the dam can’t hack the increase in water.
I suppose that’s why dam engineers (civil?) get paid a bit more than footpath “engineers”.
Good stuff.
“Hey Bob, aren’t we the engineers that are building that gigantic earth and concrete thing just up the river from there? You know, that drinky water holding thing that is supposed to withstand a 1 in 1000 year rainfall event so everyone downstream doesnt get flooded… what’s it called again… oh that’s right a ‘dam’.
Crikey, if we can’t build a piddly little footbridge to withstand a 1 in 15 year rainfall event we better go and practice with our Meccano set again to figure out what we need to do for this whatchyamacallit-dam-thingymabob.”
Can this mob actually build anything that will not fail?
Seriously, are they employing primary school kids as architects and builders?
wonderful foresight on behalf of the gov yet again.
Another ACT Gov’t construction failure? Once is unlucky, twice is careless, three times…
Were they they same engineers that designed the Barton Highway formwork?