A group of Woodberry farmers are preparing to take legal action over the destruction of their properties by run-off from surrounding development.
The 13 landholders, some of whom are farming the same land as their great grandparents, say the relentless march of urban development and industry has turned large sections of once rich agricultural land into a swamp.
The farmers don't dispute that their low-lying properties have traditionally flooded following extreme weather events, however, the land is now routinely waterlogged.
The situation has become so bad in the past decade that some have reported witnessing a "tsunami" of water racing across the plain soon after the start of heavy rain.
In addition alligator weed and other noxious plants have overrun large parts of the land.
"All of the development at the end of the M1, Sophia Waters on McFarlanes Road and all of Chisholm is channeled straight onto our properties," cattle farmer Mary Ward said.
"They are still building further up the hill. All of that water is going to come onto our properties too.
"They put three big pipes in just recently when they started to work on Government Road and Raymond Terrace Road. They just run down the side of the road and straight onto the farms."
At the same time, the farmers say they have been blindsided by the Hunter Estuary Coastal Management Plan, which, among other goals, aims to promote environmental restoration along the banks of the Hunter River.
However, the farmers say this has occurred at the cost of private landholders.
Ms Ward, who founded the Woodberry Floodplain Landholders Group, said the commercial value of the land had fallen sharply over the past decade through no fault of the owners.
"My neighbours used to always be hassling me about selling. Not any more. All I've got is a swamp," she said.
"There are snakes everywhere. The neighbour's dog got bitten yesterday and it's the middle of winter."
Owners of farmland on the fringe of Hexham swamp have been bought out in recent decades in order to progress the Hexham wetland rehabilitation project.
However, there has been no suggestion to date of a similar offer being made to Woodberry land owners.
The group has sought legal counsel about options regarding the pursuit of compensation.
"I'd like to think we could somehow resolve it without doing that (legal action), because I think that solicitors are the only winners out of these sorts of things," Ms Ward said.
"But given the way things are heading, I can't see how this can actually be resolved without some sort of court action."
Ms Ward said a key element of the landholders' complaint was that they were not consulted about changes to the land's zoning to E2 (Environmental).
A Maitland City Council spokesman said landowners were notified of the proposed land use zone changes through the public exhibition process in 2011, which comprised a five week consultation period between November and December 2010. This included a public information session at Millers Forest aimed at landholders on the floodplain.
It updated the 1993 plan in which the lands were identified as 7(a) Environment Protection Wetland and 7 (c) Environment Protection Buffer. The lands have been identified as coastal wetlands since 1985 and were mapped as such by the state government.
The council said floodgates at Francis Greenway Creek, in addition to other elements of the Hunter Valley Flood Mitigation Scheme, protected significant areas of the floodplain from tidal flooding. These floodgates stop the high tide from coming into the floodplain and let water drain out of the floodplain when the tide is low.
"The chicken processing plant releases 2,300,000 litres of nutrient-rich wastewater into Woodberry Floodplain daily, leading to severe weed growth, which slows drainage and causes waterlogging. The discharge from the chicken processing factory is the single largest source of imported water to the floodplain above natural flows," the spokesman said.
"Because of its impacts, the NSW Environmental Protection Authority has required the chicken factory to cease wastewater discharge into the floodplain by July 2026. Recovery of the floodplain from the impacts of the discharge will take some time."
The spokesman said consultation between council and landholders had been an ongoing since 2020.
In 2021, the council committed to investigating areas of concern identified by the landholders.
In addition to reporting back in coming months, the council will commence consultation on the Woodberry and Hexham Swamp Flood Study and the Hunter Estuary Coastal Management Program in late 2024 through to early 2025.
"As a part of this work, council is seeking input from individual landholders regarding their needs, priorities and perspectives on potential management options for the area and will share these findings with the relevant government agencies," he said.
Ms Ward the community felt as though the council and government agencies had been hiding behind legislation and had not engaged with landholders in good faith in the past.
"That's what I have spent the past five years researching old studies and reports that foreshadowed the problems we have today. They knew this (flooding) was going to happen but did nothing about it," she said.
The land holders also claim the decision to bury the Chichester Trunk Gravity Pipeline in 2019 has exacerbated the flooding.
Mr Ward said water that once seeped under the old pipe was now trapped.
A Hunter Water spokeswoman said a 2018 flood impact assessment investigated the impacts on both sides of the pipeline resulting from the modifications to the embankment and construction of the new culverts.
"Modelling indicates that flood extents and depths are expected to be generally comparable to the existing conditions, with localised impact areas within the immediate vicinity of the proposal typically limited to drainage lines and away from existing infrastructure," he said.
"In the design of this new pipeline, we installed drainage that was suitable for mitigating any flooding impacts. The embankment includes a number of large culverts, which have a lower risk of blockage than the old culverts."
Hunter Water said it was satisfied the final installation did not have any adverse impact on the flooding within the area based on the existing geography.
It acknowledged that land use both upstream and downstream of the culverts, which is outside of Hunter Water's control, could impact localised flow pathways, however, these localised impacts have limited influence at a catchment scale.
Ms Ward disputed the modelling findings and said water flows over the pipe were significantly different to what they previously were.
