Marion Morris wants Dubbo Regional Council to help fix the flooding issue in her backyard

Ms Morris, who resides in a property that has been in her family for just under 100 years along Purvis Lane in Dubbo, has a torrent of water rushing into her property due to poorly designed culverts.

The property predominately only had one natural water flow through it; Troy Creek.

According to Ms Morris' daughter Therese Delany, this would flow under the railway culvert at the back of the property, disperse across the low-lying land adjoining the property, which is now owned by JR Richards.

"When the volume was large enough it would then flow through the back fence into the family property but some of this flow would also makes it way to Fitzroy Street," she said.

"If the flow became too great for the back culvert, it would flow down the eastern side of the railway to a second culvert with two outlets situated at approximately the halfway mark along the long side of the family property.

"Once again going through the property to meet up with water coming from the back of the property before crossing Fitzroy Street and making its way down to the Macquarie River."

Now the property has soil erosion because of the ongoing water being directed onto Ms Morris' land.

"The water is carrying debris into the property ranging from pallets to bits of timber, bottles, cans and rubbish in general," she said.

"The fences are being damaged and having to be fixed on a regular basis, the paddock is regularly being sprayed for weeds, some never being present on the property in the past."

This ongoing maintenance has drained Ms Morris of her old age pensioner's bank balance.

Her daughters have had numerous meetings with council representatives, but claim on occasion they have been "palmed off like crazy ladies", which council has denied.

They have been asked to sell the property, but Ms Morris didn't even consider it as it was her father's family property.

"We accept there should be water flow through mum's place but not the volume and not where the main water flow is now coming from," she said.

"We are not against progression, but we are against that there has been no planning for the excess water once it reaches mum's place."

Dubbo Regional Council director of infrastructure Luke Ryan said council staff have had a number of meetings with Mrs Delaney and other family members to discuss issues relating to water entering the property as overland flow and the concerns raised have been treated as genuine.

"Council has undertaken works such as the construction of a small concrete wall on the northern side of the existing culvert on Purvis Lane and the formalisation of a channel within the property to assist with alleviating flooding to the area and redirect water through to existing culverts," Mr Ryan said.

"The property is located at a defined low point in the Troy Gully catchment and as such is subject to inundation. Council will continue to assess ongoing developments in upstream catchments to ensure the discharge of gross pollutants is managed and minimised as much as possible."

Therese, her sister and mother are concerned with the amount of water that now flows through the property and the water from an EPA site situated on JR Richards property.

The problem first started in the early 90's when the council put a culvert in Fitzroy Street adjacent to the property.

"I approached the gentleman in charge of the project at the time and tried to explain the culvert was being put in the wrong position. I was told that they were using a topography map and topography maps are not wrong," she said.

"Well in this case it was wrong as the water could only reach the culvert if the volume was large enough to flood our property, then and only then could it reach the culvert."

Ms Delany said if the volume was not large enough it would form a lake in the back section of their property.

"The water would become stagnant, smell and was a breeding haven for mosquitoes. This would also happen when the flow stopped reaching the culvert," she said.

In 2000, council widened Purvis Lane and the culvert at the end of Fitzroy Street was removed.

Ten years later JR Richards put in a development application for a truck wash, and Ms Delany voiced the family's reservations about where the excess water would be released. They were told it would be disposed into a sewer system.

READ MORE:

Dubbo Regional Council was made aware of this issue at meetings with Ms Delaney and decided to visit the site and met with staff from JR Richards and did an inspection of the on-site water management.

There is a truck wash facility on the site and water is captured in holding tanks and disposed of as a registered waste facility.

There is also a pipe on the property that conveys stormwater and is discharged onto the northern section of the JR Richards land.

With more businesses and earth movements, more culverts and channels have been built to divert water away from businesses and into the two outlet railway culverts.

Ms Delany said they were never informed or invited to meetings.

"Originally all water from Purvis Lane and the Industrial estate was diverted into mum's property," she said.

"To our way of thinking there has been a lot of forward planning by the council in relation to the storm water flow from the industrial estate on both sides of Purvis Lane, till it reaches Mum's place and then no forward planning once it hits Mum's boundary."

Ms Delany says the culverts that lead to the Macquarie River on the western side of her mother's property are now too small to handle the volume of water and flow through her mother's place on a regular basis.

"The railway culvert on the eastern side of Mum's place is not very wide but is high and this forces water into Mum's place like a raging torrent," she said.

Ms Delany's sister and mother's carer gave suggestions to council on what she thought would be best practice but it apparently "fell on deaf ears".

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: