Transcript
Klaus Nannestad
Welcome to Talking Water with GMW where we discuss all things water.
2024 marks 30 years since Goulburn Murray Water was established. Remarkably, we have some staff who have been with us since the start. In fact, today's guest, Senior Drainage Engagement Officer Lew Humphreys, joined GMW's predecessor, the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission, back in 1979. Lew speaks to us about what it involved being water bailiff back in the seventies and how things have changed in the intervening years.
We have episodes on a range of topics on our website, so be sure to check back for more.
Klaus Nannestad
Thanks for joining us Lew. I believe you started with his back as a bailiff in 1979?
Lew Humphreys
Yeah, that's right Klaus. First of all, thanks for the invitation to share my story. I appreciate it. So, May 1979 I joined State Rivers and Water Supply.
Klaus Nannestad
Tell me a bit about what sort of responsibilities bailiffs had back then.
Lew Humphreys
So back then we had 24 bailiffs in Murray Valley and each bailiff worked in rosters of three with a roster bailiff.
So some of the duties that we had back in those days, the irrigator put their orders into a little orange box that was scattered around a discrete sections, and we'd go round in the morning and we'd check the all the boxes and take the orders out and then head home for a cup of tea and you'd write your orders up and calculate how much water you needed for the following day.
Once we got our orders figured out, we'd sit down, write up what we needed to do, who we needed to see the following day, and we'd call in and let them know their start time and check out the irrigators finish time. Once they started the irrigation, the other part of the daily duties was to time that we also we'd have to go out and you'd time there wheels.
Then we had to record those. We had a field ledger that had all the start metre readings for the season, and we had an A4 sheet that had all the operating wheels going for that week. So we would enter the megalitres that they were using and then at the end of that irrigation would read the meter.
So we had to read the meters every week. Part of that was that every Wednesday we'd then have to calculate how much we received, how much was delivered, so that give us a percentage of accounted for and unaccounted for, and we had to have that done by Thursday morning to give us a head bailiff.
Other things that we did were obviously routine maintenance during the season. We didn't have excavators to go and dig leaks back in those days, we had a shovel and away we went, or if we had a a leaking emplacement, we'd mix up some Silasec and do that at the time.
We lived on the section. Back in those days, part of the conditions of employment was you lived on the section and you were on the job from the moment got out in a ute, you're actually at work.
So yeah, it was different times.
Klaus Nannestad
And it seems like it was pretty specialized role as well. So how did you get the job? Was there specific training you needed to undergo to become a bailiff?
Lew Humphreys
You had to have a little bit of knowledge of irrigation - I came off a farm where we had irrigation. So I had a basic background. I worked on an orchard farm where we did irrigation as well, so you had to have a little bit of an aptitude for irrigation.
When I started in 1979, I remember leaving my job or finishing up where I was actually working on the Friday and the following week started at State Rivers and Water Supply and a first day on the job was over at the training center here in Tatura. So there was a week of living, so we lived in here, there was bedding and they had people come in and do the cooking and that and - that was pretty intense. Like when you think about my previous employment and the only figures I worried about was what was in the paycheck, and then you start talking about upstream water levels and downstream water levels and calculating flows. Yeah, it was a little bit mind boggling.
We did that. And then when you became a bailiff where you were appointed to a bailiff of section, we did two weeks of live-in training as well. It was again over here at Tat at the training center, and that was a lot more intense where we went out on the channels and had a look to see how other areas did it.
But a lot of the training was - as a relieving water bailiff you'd go with a section bailiff and you'd sit there and learn from them - they'd pass on their knowledge. So there's a lot of knowledge sharing from the bailiffs and everybody does it differently. You couldn't write a manual because we all did it differently.
But I remember as a reliever, I went with bailiff up Cobram and always going to get in the passenger seat and he said, 'No, no, no help in the driver's seat.'
And I hadn't been in the section before. And he said, 'okay, off we go.' And he said, 'okay.' We pulled up at a regulator and he said, 'How much water we need to go past this point here?' And of course didn't know. So we had section maps back in those days and he said, 'okay, work out what wheels are going below what the flows are and then tell me how much we need.'
So that was a good learning curve to actually sit in the driver's seat and learn.
Klaus Nannestad
Yeah. And so also would have been a role that would have required quite a bit of commitment with you living in the barracks and on call so often, it would have been quite a lifestyle change.
Lew Humphreys
We worked a 6/2 roster. So for those six days you were on duty 24/7. It also meant that if I wanted to go to Shepparton or we wanted to go out socially, we'd have to ring the head bailiff and give him a contact number and say, 'I'm going to be gone from 6:00 tonight until 9:00. This is the telephone number.'
That was just a lifestyle, just part of the job. But it was a good lifestyle. You were part of the community and it was great for the kids; they had a rural environment and local town and yeah, it was good.
Klaus Nannestad
And going back to even earlier, I believe you had some family connections, including your father-in-law, who also worked for the State Rivers Commission, before it became GMW. Did you hear much from him about how things were different in his days to when you started?
Lew Humphreys
Yeah I'd probably go back one step further, my grandfather, which I didn't know because he had obviously passed away before I was born, he worked for the State Rivers back during the war. So that connection there goes back a bit.
Bill Limbrick, my father-in-law, he actually told me not to join. He said, 'look, it's it's not a job for you,' because back in those days I worked seven days a week for the season. And, you know, he just said, 'look, you have no family life' but he had seven kids and was the secretary of a football league. So he made it work.
Other family connections. Like my brother was maintenance planner with Murray Valley, my nephew Jay, who's a planner here now. So there is a connection.
Klaus Nannestad
Obviously the role would have changed a lot over the years, particularly with technological advancements.
Lew Humphreys
Yeah, in 1979 we had the end of season meeting and the district office manager, Charlie Sing, who was in Cobram, he addressed the meeting and made the comment that State Rivers was working towards technology to be able to operate channels by satellite, and we thought he had lost his marbles, couldn't believe it. But here we are now, and I got automation and things like that.
So we used to write the orders up, get him out of the orange order box. And then we went to a central area where there was a tape and the irrigators used to call in the order through and then one bailiff out of each roster group would go and take those off the tape, write them down manually, and then they'd go to the planner and they would do the plan or they'd enter them into the computer manually, and then it was a ream of paper that came out with all the orders, and we had to use a ruler and a black lead pencil to be able to join up the start and finish times. And that was a hell of a job, you know, It was it was incredible. So that was sort of the precursor to central planning, and then we got to a point where we started with computerised central planning and to where we are, You know, it's just going further and further down the track to now where we used to have to ring the irrigator to confirm their start time and see when they were going to finish irrigation and now it's done automatically, with total channel control they can start when there's water available, so that's been a huge change.
Klaus Nannestad
Yeah. And so how did you then go from your role as a water bailiff and get to your current role as a senior drainage engagement officer?
Lew Humphreys
I spent 25 years under one section at Waaia, so that was a long time and a two years planning and then went as a supervisor for five years in Murray Valley, and then I was actually - I was tired, I needed to get out and transformation in 2013 gave me the opportunity, so I took it.
But I like being around people and an opportunity came up again to join Government Water with Connections program. I applied for modernisation coordinator's position in Murray Valley and didn't get that, and Carolyn Nigro, the manager of surface and subsurface drainage, was on the interview panel and she asked me if I would be interested in joining central Goulburn as a modernisation coordinator, which, to be honest, I was reluctant about it. But talking to my wife, Helen, and discussing that, we decided that it's an opportunity - I wanted to get back into full time work.
I accepted the role and then three years down the track, Carolyn came across to the drainage team and she approached Susan Emmett myself and said, 'Look, there's two roles coming up if you're interested.' Obviously, having worked with Carolyn and with Susan, it was an opportunity that was too good to miss out on. So I applied for it and Susie applied for it and we both joined.
I've been here just gone six years now. Yeah, love the job.
Klaus Nannestad
Yeah. It is a great team our drainage team. Do you sort of see many parallels between disturbing when you started all the way back in 1979 as a water bailiff?
Lew Humphreys
I think the common denominator is it's the friendships you make that make the job. There's a lot of good people I work with over the journey in Murray Valley with the Connections Project and with our drainage team. Obviously, as you know, our drainage team is a very tight unit, It's all based on friendship and work, but you know, it's the friendship and camaraderie that we have. But I enjoy being with people. I enjoy going out and meeting people and yeah, so that's that's one of the big focuses.
Klaus Nannestad
Yeah, I know that your team has developed some really fantastic relationships with different landholders and farmers as well.
Lew Humphreys
It's how we go about our program. From when I started there was a strong focus on customer consultation with the drainage program. We still have some people that are reluctant, but once I understand what we're about, they come on board and to be honest we haven't had any pushback at all. We've had some people that have expressed concerns and when we've sat down and gone through the program and the process and the potential for them to have a form of drainage that they potentially wouldn't have anyway, it's pretty rewarding.
Klaus Nannestad
Thanks very much Lew. Is there anything we haven't covered?
Lew Humphreys
I think for me, I've enjoyed my time. You know, it'll be 46 years in May.
I'm thankful that I didn't listen to my father-in-law. And, you know, it's a different job now that our field operators and our planners do to what I had. But again, I see the planners working across from them. They have a strong connection to each other. So yeah, I think yeah, I'm pretty happy with how things have gone.