Snowy 2.0 started out as my ‘Snowy Augmentation Scheme’ in 1995, and it took me 10 years to convince Malcolm Turnbull of the merits of ‘Pumped Hydro’.
It wasn’t until requests for submissions from the general public were made in 2009 that any progress was made.
Unfortunately for me, I was on a long cruise around the Pacific when an invitation was sent out to me to attend a meeting to discuss it, and by the time I got back and found out about it, the meeting had happened without me.
The meeting determined to investigate the matter, deciding eventually to amend it to what is now known as Snowy 2.0.
This amendment adopted an earlier Snowy Hydro design from the original scheme, which had until then been shelved, this design had severe water hammer issues.
Engineering had moved on considerably since that design but unfortunately the team did not have the practical experience to appreciate that. (Engineering is 10 per cent intellect and 90 per cent experience, and if you hadn’t had the experience, no matter how clever you were, you would not make the correct decisions).
Unfortunately for the people of NSW, things deteriorated catastrophically from here.
Firstly, the wrong person was appointed project manager, and the wrong contractor was awarded the contract (despite warnings from the WA government to the NSW Government about them, which the PM ignored).
This contractor proceeded to cut corners on the construction method, by not injecting Bentonite into bad ground before drilling into it, resulting in the tunnel boring machine getting bogged when this ground collapsed on it.
It took a huge amount of time to rectify this problem and was the start of a host of questionable decisions which then plagued the project.
The current situation is unforgivable, some people should be severely punished for it.
There should be a Royal Commission into the whole shabby affair.
If the contractor that carried out the Sydney tunnels had been employed and my design - which was a modern design based on the latest technological developments, which had no water hammer issues - had been adopted, a very different outcome would have been achieved.
Yours etc.
Steve Briggs
Deniliquin
25°C