Old Wallaville Bridge crosses the Burnett River near Wallaville, southwest of Bundaberg. It is a bridge with an interesting history that now requires significant work to continue to carry heavy vehicles. The bridge is currently load limited and council is planning to rehabilitate the structure. The bridge was on the Bruce Highway until the Tim Fischer Bridge was opened in 1999. The substructure was constructed in the 1940's with a timber superstructure. In the late 1960's the superstructure w...

McMurtrie Consulting Engineers (MCE) has been engaged by North Burnett Regional Council (NBRC) to provide natural disaster event project management services for flood events declared in 2022 and 2024. In response to the disaster, significant quantities of gravel were required all over the region. Prior to the event, NBRC had made the decision to close their Council-managed quarries and burrow pits, citing internal staffing difficulties to comply with mining WHS legislation. The process going ...

An unfortunate reality is that on most projects, defective work is inevitable. If not addressed properly, defective work can give rise to significant rectification costs, and cause delay to the successful completion of the project. The approach taken towards the management of defects is critical towards ensuring the success of the project and to protecting the community’s assets. This presentation will draw upon McCullough Robertson’s experience in successfully resolving defects disputes and ...

This presentation will be a summary of the Industry Project I completed in 2022 and submitted as my final assessment in the Masters of Engineering Practice Course. The purpose of this project was to investigate and understand how road pavements perform in practice, and to use this understanding to develop a Pavement Design Procedure to be used by Rockhampton Regional Council in everyday practice. This project relates to common Council roads such as light to medium trafficked urban streets, an...

Queensland’s diverse climate faces severe climate adversity. Against the backdrop of global warming, the state faces increasingly sparse water provision - despite underutilisation of water supply. Queensland is as reliant upon its tropical characteristics as it is inefficient at exploiting those conditions. Such issues were faced in the Fraser Coast and the construction of a water-grid provides a simple and effective solution. Combined with an adaptive approach that utilises technological cli...

Up until previously, flood models were basically relatively largely unusable sets of data of which the value was not fully realised or maximised (i.e. just a link on a map). Synergy has been working with numerous Council's across QLD (Southern Downs, Gympie, Brisbane, Ipswich and Fraser Coast) in a mix of rural and urban strategic flood risk management plans (FRMP's). Our approach is unique and contemporary based on our understanding of local government needs across various areas such as land...

Gary Jensen is my desk buddy in our Townsville office. Gary has been a part of Townsville’s water and engineering industries for many years. He works full-time and is regularly the last person to leave our office each day. He has an ‘old-school’ dedication to his clients - he’ll stay until the job is done. That probably explains why he is still working - Gary is 83 years old. At some point in the near future, Gary will finally decide to retire. This is a common story across our industry - whe...