Death threats, phone taps and 24-hour security — they were never the sort of things Rob Ayre and Terry Malone imagined could concern their work as flood engineers in south-east Queensland.
But in 2011, after the pair helped operate a dam network in a bid to mitigate extreme river floods in Ipswich and Brisbane, they faced a sea of controversy and blame even before the last murky waters had drained away.
Now, over a decade after the flood that caused 33 deaths, impacted more than 14,000 properties and left a damage bill of about $2.3 billion, the engineers have finally responded to their detractors.
They want to raise awareness about the continued vulnerability of the region to flooding regardless of the dams.
Critically, they say that despite the passing of so much time, authorities have not fully understood or acted on the key lessons from the event.
They said last year's floods, which resulted in over 22,000 properties being impacted despite the intervention of the region's two major dams, the Wivenhoe and Somerset, demonstrated the lack of understanding.
"A myth continues to be propagated" that if the Wivenhoe and Somerset dams are operated properly there will be no flooding in Brisbane and Ipswich, they told fellow engineers in a speech at a conference last year.
And the solution, they argued, lies in the government regulating planning and development in flood-prone areas.
Speaking to the ABC, Mr Ayre said local and state governments "need to grab the nettle" and mandate regulations.
"If they had been put in place then the amount of damage that occurred in those subsequent events would have been reduced," he said.
In the wake of the 2011 flood, Mr Ayre and Mr Malone and the two other engineers, John Ruffini and John Tibaldi, were hit with a wide range of accusations relating to their role in operating the dams.
Claims were made about everything from poor decision-making and ignoring the official dam operations manual to incompetence, and even covering-up alleged mistakes.
Every aspect of their performance was scrutinised, first by the media and then in a series of post-flood event reports, a commission of inquiry, a corruption agency investigation, and long-running legal action seeking compensation for flood victims.
During the 11 years of investigation and legal action, the four engineers made little public comment due to their employment status and concerns about interfering with court cases and inquiries.
But that changed late last year with the conclusion of the flood class action.
In November, before a symposium of some 200 of their peers in Brisbane, Mr Ayre, Mr Malone and Mr Ruffini presented a critical account of the handling of the aftermath of the flood and some rebuttal of the attacks on their actions.
A 'complete falsehood'
Their paper, Wivenhoe, January 2011: The Dam Truth, spoke of the toll the incident took on the foursome, criticised the official flood inquiry and took aim at the failure of authorities and the commission of inquiry to do more to restrict development in flood-prone areas.
This was presented in the context of last year's devastating flood event.
The paper said the decade-old commission of inquiry missed the opportunity to recommend enforcing planning and development approval processes and the mandatory application of flood-resilient building codes in flood-prone areas.
It noted that while the Queensland government has since issued flood-resilient building guidance for homes in June 2022, these "guidelines" should go a step further and be mandated for flood-prone regions.
"This issue must be revisited especially considering the recent February 2022 flood event,'' it said.
Their paper said that the notion that if the dams had been properly operated there would have been no flooding in Brisbane and Ipswich was a "complete falsehood".
"Unfortunately, this myth continues to be propagated by the media and class-action supporters,'' they said.
"One only needs to look at the outcome of the February 2022 flood event to realise that Brisbane and Ipswich can flood when the rainfall is concentrated downstream of the dams."
Mr Malone told the ABC it was important to note that in 2022, under the new flood manual operating rules, dam levels were at a lower level, providing a greater capacity to hold back floodwaters.
He said 2022 inflows into the dams were less than in 2011 – yet flooding still occurred.
The comments and the paper came as a surprise to flood victims who believe the engineers should have let water out earlier based on rain forecasts.
David Stark, whose Brisbane house flooded in 2011 and who became an unofficial spokesman for victims during the inquiry, said nothing changed the fact the men did not follow the dam's flood operating manual.
If the dam engineers had made water releases on the basis of rain forecasts "then we wouldn't be talking about this now", he said.
"If only they had done that then there wouldn't have been a flood," he said.
"No dam is going to be big enough, because we never know what nature can throw at us … the point is if we have got rules [for dam operations] worked out … then they should be followed."
Mixed findings in post-flood investigations
The engineers also spoke of the pressure and mental toll they experienced following 2011 and cited their referral to the state's anti-corruption agency as the low point in an ordeal that lasted over a decade.
In 2011 in an after-flood event report, they were found to have acted appropriately.
But then in the subsequent flood commission of inquiry before Justice Catherine Holmes, it was found that Wivenhoe Dam had been operated in breach of official operating rules, contained in the dam's flood operating manual, for more than 22 hours.
The commission did however note that the manual was "ambiguous, unclear and difficult to use and was not based on the best most current research and information".
The commission referred Mr Tibaldi, Mr Malone and Mr Ayre to the state's Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) over concerns they had perjured themselves in relation to inconsistent statements to the inquiry.
But the CMC's investigation, overseen by a retired judge, found no basis for charging any of the men with criminal misconduct and highlighted the contradictory nature of the flood manual, which explained the inconsistent statements and other issues.
Unrelated to the CMC investigation, it also later emerged that Mr Ruffini had failed to renew his engineer's registration at the time of his working on the flood.
In 2012 he was fined $1,500 by a magistrate but had no conviction recorded after it was revealed he had been ill in hospital when the registration lapsed in 2010.
The engineers then faced a decade-long court action brought by class-action lawyers representing some 6,800 flood victims against the dam operator SunWater and owner SeqWater and the state government.
In 2019, the New South Wales Supreme Court found SeqWater, SunWater and the government were negligent in relation to the floods and that the engineers had failed to follow the dam operations manual and had breached their duty.
The court highlighted the decisions to make releases based on the rain that had already fallen on the ground instead of the manual's requirement to use rain forecasts. He also noted their focus on keeping bridges open at the expense of urban flooding.
Supreme Court Justice Beech-Jones awarded the plaintiffs $880 million in damages.
SunWater and the state then settled for $440 million but SeqWater appealed and won on the basis that the flood engineers had acted by way of consensus and ultimately followed the legitimate strategy determined by the senior flood operations manager.
Death threats and security guards on the doorstep
The engineers' symposium paper detailed some of the impacts of events during this 12-year period.
They spoke of the time in 2011 as being the "longest five months of their professional careers" living in "a state of limbo, not allowed to associate with each other, having security guards posted on their doorsteps in response to alleged death threats" and advised they could be under surveillance with their phones tapped.
"These days were dark days indeed for the flood engineers. Unfortunately, the stigma of being referred to the CMC (Crime and Misconduct Commission) remains with the three flood engineers and the media in any report should include the reference and the outcome of no evidence of misconduct finding,'' the paper said.
Mr Ayre said his worst moment was facing the corruption investigation.
"Having your integrity challenged in such a public way … it was particularly daunting,'' he said.
"I struggled deeply in that whole process … we were afforded opportunities to speak with professionals to give us strategies to cope with the stress we had."
The engineers, in their paper, highlighted their surprise about the way in which the flood commission's final report was authored.
They noted how one of the assistant flood inquiry commissioners Phil Cummins, a dam safety expert, had later told a conference that "he had not contributed to the writing of the report".
"It is remarkable that a dam expert could be left out of such an exercise especially as the re-convened hearings dealt specifically with the operation of the dams,'' the engineers wrote in their paper.
Mr Cummins had been told by Justice Holmes in early February 2012 that he would not take further part in the inquiry after it was revealed he was linked to a consultancy that was to undertake future work with SeqWater.
In their paper the engineers also questioned the commission's findings that there was capacity for "improvement" in their management of the flood.
The paper described this as "debatable" and pointed out that the commission's appointed hydrologist Mark Babister concluded in the final report the engineers had achieved "close to the best-possible flood mitigation result".
Minister defends inquiry into 2011 flood event
This week in response to the statements, Water Minister Glenn Butcher said the engineers were entitled to their opinion, but the inquiry was critical to ensure how things could have been done differently and, in some cases, better.
Mr Butcher said the effective flood response was demonstrated last year.
"In the 2022 floods, Wivenhoe Dam performed exactly as it was supposed to,'' he said.
"Across that intense three-day period last February and March, Wivenhoe Dam more than tripled the volume of water being stored and at its peak held back about 2.2 million megalitres of water – that's about the equivalent of four Sydney Harbours."
Mr Butcher said the operators made steady controlled releases so as not to exacerbate downstream flooding and their work was praised by the Inspector General of Emergency Management.
"SeqWater staff are the experts that are trained to operate the dam based on the advice received, their expertise and the terms of the flood manual,'' he said.
Mr Tibald, who still works at SeqWater, declined to comment.
Mr Ruffini also declined to comment.
