"There's so much that could be done if only WE HAD A INFINITE AMOUNT OF MONEY !"
thinkabit,
Spoken like a true bureaudroid. We could more than half such costs if we kept the "experts" away & let people who know deal with it !

indy: "Spoken like a true bureaudroid. We could more than half such costs if we kept the "experts" away & let people who know deal with it !"

From reading your various wild civil engineering proposals over the years, I can easily understand why you never managed to become financially independent but instead ended up on the aged pension. Your proposals simply don't make economic sense. Let me detail to you why this last brain fart of an idea of your's won't work.

Let's take the town of Moree as our case study since it is one of the towns that is suffering. Here are some pictures of its flooding on the ABC website: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-28/before-and-during-photos-of-gunnedah-and-moree-floods/101585484 .

Staring with raw real-life data. I've searched for land for sale in Moree on realestate.com ( http://www.realestate.com.au/buy/property-land-in-moree,+nsw+2400/list-1 ). Here's ALL the house block sized parcels (ie: 1/2 acre or less and not commercial) they have listed for sale. I've calculate the price per area and listed them form least to most expansive.

FF : 8/6 Welbon St., 49000$ :2023m^2 -> 24$/m^2
FF : 8 Barwon Ave... 25000$ : 652m^2 -> 38$/m^2
FF : 15 Tawarri St., 22000$ : 564m^2 -> 39$/m^2
FF : 75 Anne St...., 55000$ :1378m^2 -> 40$/m^2
-- : 60 Oak St....., 85000$ : 1750m^2 -> 49$/m^2
FF : 321 Auburn St., 50000$ : 849m^2 -> 59$/m^2
FF : 8 James St...., 40000$ : 612m^2 -> 65$/m^2
FF : 14 Florence St, 78500$ : 930m^2 -> 84$/m^2
FF : 278 Warialda St,85000$ : 942m^2 -> 90$/m^2
-- : 4 Cooee St...., 60000$ : 651m^2 -> 92$/m^2
FF : 33 Bohenia Cr., 95000$ : 730m^2 -> 130$/m^2

Note that in the above the FF stands for flood free. That is, these are the blocks of land for sale that the advert specifically mentioned are flood free*.

-continued below-

IMPORTANTLY, the above real-life data says that you can pay a median price of about 60$/m^2 for flood free land.

Ok, now let's assume you can acquire free** land, but the catch is that it floods. Under your plan we raise the land's level with waste fill. Broadly this involves:
1 - organise and supervise the collection of the fill material (you need to make certain that the fill is the right type and not contaminated with toxic substances)
2 - process the material if needed (eg: crush concrete waste to the right size)
3 - load and transport it 100's of kilometers from the cities and towns where you're collecting it to Moree
4 - tip and spread it out
5 - compact it

For your project to be viable you need to be able to reclaim flood land CHEAPER than you can buy existing available flood-free land. Specifically, you need to be able to do the above 5 steps at a cost cheaper than*^:

raise level 2m : 15$/ton-of-fill
raise level 3m : 10$/ton
raise level 4m : 7.5$/ton
raise level 5m : 6$/ton
raise level 6m : 5$/ton

So do you really think it is possible to implement your proposal at below these prices? Can you now see now why your idea will be a financial failure if you were to raise land levels by meters?

The other problem with you plan is not just the costs involved but the practicality. We simply don't have enough waste fill available to apply your scheme on broad scales in the near future. It would take decades/centuries to accumulate enough waste fill for any sizeable reclaimed area big enough to build a town on top of.

-continued below-

[*Initially, I intended to cross check these addresses with flood maps for record 1955 flood, but I can't find any freely available maps on the internet. So just have to take the ads' claims at face value.
** Obviously not realistic- in reality flood land will still cost you. So this means your proposal is an even worse idea.
*^ here I'm assuming the fill is about 2000kg/m^3 density- ie. to fill 1 cubic meter it requires 2 tons of fill.]

Hi thinkabit,

Correct me if I'm wrong. You said elsewhere you are opposed to spending taxpayer dollars where its not in the direct self interest of the taxpayer, eg; aboriginal welfare. Well, paying out millions for flood victims seems to fall into the same category, would you not agree.

Is Mise- In this case I would support the levis in order to smooth out the boom bust cycles. Adam Smith doesn't like the price gouging that occurs due to supply shortages. Keyne despite his failings argues for smoothing out of the cycles using government spending. Friedman would probably be against taxation being used for the levis. Republican Benjamin Franklin would probably be for them- given his support for poor hospitals.

The farmland around a capital city sustains the supplies of the city in a fairly fundamental way looking at Maslow's hierarchy.

Cheap farm produce is good for everyone so everyone benefits- this is achieved if supply is high. If everyone benefits then why shouldn't everyone pay. It's better to pay for this than council based child care- that many don't use- but still have to pay for.