Lismore’s pump stations are being overhauled to protect the city from future floods. Pump Industry explores the projects taking place.
Pump stations have been regarded as the “lungs of the Lismore flood levee system”, such is their integral role in providing extreme-weather protection.
Lismore has experienced several severe floods in the last decade – three of which overtopped the city’s CBD levee system. This includes two in one year, with a record flood event in February 2022 that peaked at 14.36m followed by another flood surge just a month later.
The February event was driven by three rain episodes starting on February 26. About 670 millimetres of rain fell in the next two days, with waterways ballooning as a result. A record flood level was reached on February 28.
La Niña weather conditions continued to pose a risk into March, and heavy rainfall battered Lismore later that month, overtopping the CBD levee system once again. Flood levels reached as high as 11.40m on this occasion.
These extreme weather events impacted more than 3000 businesses across Lismore, affecting 18,000 jobs with 1000 of those in agriculture. Nearly 1400 homes across the broader local government area (LGA) incurred major damage with at least 37 destroyed completely.
Council assets such as roads, bridges, water and wastewater infrastructure incurred over $350 million in damage. This included impacts to a range of pump stations strewn across the city’s landscape.
After emergency works were completed on Lismore’s pumping infrastructure following the 2022 events, these assets would be tested again, with Tropical Cyclone Alfred bringing heavy rainfall to Lismore in March 2025, causing flood levels to peak at 9.31m – just below the 10.20–10.95m CBD levee overtopping range.
Now, after successive extreme flood events, Lismore’s pump stations are being refurbished to bolster resilience.
This forms part of the Federal Government’s Northern Rivers Recovery and Resilience Program (NRRRP), whereby $150 million has been allocated to the NSW Government to carry out flood mitigation projects across seven LGAs.
In February 2023, $17.2 million was allocated in the NRRRP’s first tranche ($50 million all up) to complete seven upgrades to Lismore pump stations.
Pump Industry sat down with Lismore City Council projects director – flood resilience program Garon Clough to understand the role pump stations play to support the city.
“Lismore has multiple levee systems and associated pump stations positioned along its levees,” he told Pump Industry.
“The flood pump stations manage and dewater stormwater and local flooding when the river comes up, excluding gravity drainage through town, with the pumps sized to reduce flood damages in storm events.”
Clough said the pump stations and levee systems must also be aligned, with some pump stations pre-dating the levee system.
“The levee system was predominantly completed in the early 2000s,” he said.
“Pumping capacity and the required flow rate didn’t match levee protection, causing localised stormwater flooding and evacuation routes being cut prematurely. We’re trying to target that with these upgrades.”
Clough said the key goal is to not only align pump station performance but also identify and address deficiencies within the stormwater network to better service the community.
“This is benefited by improved hydrological understanding, where we’re utilising the best information available to determine catchment dynamics and the function of storms,” he said.
“This is helping us size pumps to account for catchment changes, increased flows, better understanding of the other catchments and local stormwater functions.”
To optimise operational reliability, submersible pumps are being installed as part of the pump station upgrades.
Clough explained the reasoning behind this.
“We have a 10 per cent AEP (annual exceedance probability) levee in Lismore, but we need to protect assets to account for much larger floods, and we don’t want to see damage to critical components, such as dry-mount motors or switch rooms, during extreme events,” he said.
“These assets are installed above higher flood levels (than the 10 per cent AEP levee), but we’re implementing submersible pumps to account for site inundation in larger events that exceed the levee. With operational reliability front of mind, we’ve opted for tried and test pump technologies and performance.”
A 10 per cent AEP levee is designed to protect Lismore from a 1-in-10-year flood – an important consideration for flood-resilience efforts.
Local contractors Steady State and Engineered Project Solutions have been engaged to carry out the works, forming part of the council’s strategy to involve business from Lismore or surrounds.
“Being a regional city, we have drivers and objectives to target local contractors as much as possible, to build local capability and capacity,” Clough said. “These Northern Rivers contractors were given the opportunity to tender on some works and were in turn successful.
“Where works exceed the capabilities of our local contractors, we’d be looking to utilise larger construction firms to come in and assist, but in terms of the Gasworks job that Steady State and Engineered Project Solutions have contributed to, they’ve done a great job and met all project objectives.”
With refurbishment of Lismore’s Gasworks pump station completed, works on the Browns Creek, Lower Hollingworth Creek and Magellan Street pump stations are advancing at pace. A new pump station is also being built in South Lismore.
At Browns Creek – the most recognisable pump station in Lismore’s flood resilience network – a new pump station is being built alongside the existing facility, with four submersible pumps expected to deliver four-to-five times the power of the existing two systems.
Lismore City Council recently marked a key milestone in Browns Creek’s development, completing detailed inspections and GPS mapping of the creek’s underground path through a 57-year-old concrete culvert beneath central Lismore.
Completion of Browns Creek works is expected in the second quarter (Q2) of 2026, while the new pump station in South Lismore, housing several electric submersible pumps and a new stormwater drainage network, is set for completion in Q2 2026.
Improved screening and the raising of electricals above the 2022 flood level are being completed at Lower Hollingsworth Creek, while at Magellan Street, two new submersible pumps will replace a tractor-driven pump, increasing capacity from 600 litres (L) per second to 1000L/second.
These undertakings are set for completion by Q3 2026.
Each Lismore pump station upgrade is being supported by a new fibre optic network to support remote operation, monitoring and surveillance.
When asked about the long-term objectives of Lismore’s pump station upgrades, Clough was definitive.
“The pump station upgrades provide a reduction in flooding effects during local storms, increasing the evacuation time in larger catchment floods that would ultimately exceed levee capacity,” he said.
“The pump assets have been brought up to modern standards and will now be available for back-to-back repeated floods across the levee system.
“In terms of asset reliability and renewal, the pump stations should now be expected to operate for a considerable length of time.”
Tranche two of the NRRRP was announced in July 2023, with $100 million being distributed across 20 projects, including works to widen the Browns Creek flood channel.
Beyond that, local council is overseeing numerous restoration projects across Lismore, with all undertakings to ensure the city is better positioned to repel extreme flood events.
This feature appeared in the Autumn edition of Pump Industry.
