Rebuilding, repairing and cleaning up after a flood

Some of the initial clean up priorities following a flood are focussed on dealing with the mud and any hazardous chemicals in the receding waters as well as disinfecting spaces and things.

The Red Cross has information on cleaning up after a disaster on their website and NSW Health has information on household clean-up for after a flood or storm on their website.

NSW EPA has information on dealing with flood mud and household and hazardous chemicals on their website.

Post floods, the spread of mould can cause serious health issues. When dealing with mould, people need to ensure they tale the proper precautions and wear protective personal equipment (PPE), which may include gloves, eye protection and properly fitted disposable P2 respirator masks. For people who cannot deal with the mould themselves, there are remediation specialists who are experts in treating it.

NSW Health has a fact sheet on mould on their website and Safework NSW has information on mould in the workplace on their website. 

Lismore City Council has developed a range of information resources on asbestos waste collection and disposal in our waste section.

There is information on the NSW EPA website about dealing with asbestos in flood-affected areas. 

If your residential or commercial building was impacted by the February and March 2022 natural disaster and/or June and July 2022 floods, you can register to have a building assessment carried out by certified inspectors.

This is an opt-in program that will provide you with a free, detailed assessment report, including a comprehensive scope of repair works and an estimate of repair costs. After receiving your report, you are in control of what happens next.

If the assessment finds the property to be unsafe or beyond economical repair, you can choose to have demolition and removal of waste services undertaken at no cost.

Register here

For other comprehensive information on cleaning, rebuilding and repairing your homes, visit the NSW Government website on rebuilding or repairing.  

This program provides you with a free soil assessment for properties that may be contaminated as a result of floods.

Registrations for this program closed on 30 June 2023. The program was only for the Northern Rivers area of NSW.

For flood-related programs in other areas please visit Service NSW Emergencies and disasters.

The program involves comprehensive water quality monitoring in flood-affected local government areas with disaster declarations issued by the NSW Government in 2022. The program aids environmental recovery and will prioritise significantly impacted catchments.

Information gathered through the program will be used to better inform waterways managers and users of water quality, potential impacts on their activities, and to guide management decisions.

Benefits of the program

The program will support long term environmental recovery from flood events between February and July 2022 by:

• understanding the longer-term impacts of floods on water quality.
• working with communities and waterways users to ensure local needs for information about water quality are met.
• promoting evidence-based decision making and management.
• improving stakeholder ability to identify and manage potential risk associated with natural disasters.
• facilitating coordination and collaboration across agencies and programs.

For more information around the program, email enquiries.waterscience@environment.nsw.gov.au.

The NSW EPA website has more on the water quality monitoring program.

The 2021 and 2022 floods left debris in waterways, along shorelines and on public and private lands. This program focusses on removing man-made flood debris left on public land and eligible private land. The EPA is leading this program to help communities and councils to recover from the extreme weather events over the last two years. Public land includes council managed parks, reserves, and beaches.

The program was expanded on 2022 to include the clean-up of eligible large or hazardous man-made flood debris that has washed or moved onto private land. This includes debris from alternative locations, as a result of flooding across impacted communities. This helped those landowners that did not have the skills, capacity, specialist equipment or financial means to remove debris.

The EPA has extended its Flood Debris Maintenance Program to 1 May 2024 in the Northern Rivers to target remaining eligible flood debris.

Requests for clean-up can be sent to flood.programs@epa.nsw.gov.au and will be triaged daily by the Flood Projects Team. Each eligible tasking will be assigned individually to contractors for removal. Only large and hazardous flood debris will continue to be eligible under the program.

The EPA website has been updated with this information and their related fact sheet.

Assistance beyond this date can be made via email floodwaste@mraconsulting.com.au or by phone on 131 555. To report flood debris on public land, email flood.programs@epa.nsw.gov.au.

The EPA’s Shoreline Clean-up Program continues to remove flood debris from our waterways, beaches and the shorelines of our rivers.

The Shoreline Clean-up Program removes flood debris from waterways and shorelines in disaster declared areas. The debris is identified through a number of sources including aerial surveillance, patrols by boat, reports from the community, agencies including councils and other stakeholders.

The NSW EPA has appointed AVCON Australasia and Northern Rivers Marine Services to deliver these clean-up services.

Flood debris is being removed from shorelines using boats and barges. The debris is unloaded straight on to trucks for disposal or taken to a staging area. Beaches are typically cleaned through manual hand-picking and accessed by foot, 4WD or jet ski.

Fenced waste staging areas are being used in some areas as part of the clean-up program to temporarily and safely store debris that is collected before it is taken for recycling or disposal.

In Northern NSW the clean-up has been finalised in the Tweed, Byron, and Clarence Valley local government areas (LGAs). Works have been completed in Lismore, Richmond Valley, Bellingen, Nambucca and Kempsey LGAs with final inspections and termination meetings to occur in early 2023. The EPA will be running a maintenance program for up to six months in 2023 to manage any debris which may appear following the initial clean-up.

The NSW EPA website has more on the Shoreline Clean Up Program. 

Storms and floods in 2021 and 2022 washed large amounts of debris into waterways. This program is to locate and identify submerged (underwater) flood debris in rivers and to remove it where it poses a hazard.

The program uses sonar technology to detect items submerged below the water level. Sonar technology mounted on boats sends out sound waves and measures returning echoes to detect hazardous items on the riverbed.

Once these items are identified they can be removed by our clean-up contractors where they pose a safety and navigational hazard or will have a detrimental effect on the river habitat if it remains in the river.

The NSW EPA continues to work closely with NSW Maritime and the Department of Primary Industries - Fisheries to identify priority areas on rivers to focus sonar surveys. Intelligence is also provided by the public, the fishing industry, councils, and organisations such as OceanWatch is also being collated to inform surveys.

The EPA has appointed Hydrographic & Cadastral Survey and SandMap to do the sonar surveys in the priority areas.

Submerged debris removal

Sonar data has been used to remove items which were presenting significant hazards to safety or the environment. Initial reviews are conducted with NSW Maritime and DPI Fisheries before specialist dive teams investigate hazards and take required action.

Crews are currently removing or trimming hazardous trees along the Richmond River, including three trees that were a risk to Woodburn bridge and two large trees that were a navigational risk. Crews have also removed a large diesel tank and a vehicle that was a risk to the environment.

The EPA is continuing to work with NSW Maritime to identify further priority riverbed areas to focus hydrographic surveys and assess any potential hazards identified. Submerged hazards will continue to be removed in December 2022 and in early 2023.

For more information on the submerged debris program and updates, visit the NSW EPA website.