Wrong.  Just four years.

"That was ripped apart in 2011 and you can see where the pipe comes through there was a road through there," Mr Payne says.

"So there was obviously a lot more dirt on the other side of that because that road came down to the pump site," he said.

"It has just ripped it to pieces. And that is what happens with the power of the water."

Since then a portion of his farm has literally fallen into the upper reaches of the Brisbane River, the soil washed past the Mt Crosby Water Treatment plant and downstream to Moreton Bay.

Jeff Payne's problem is one of literally hundreds of erosion problems in the Lockyer Valley and Upper Brisbane River which are causing millions of dollars of - sometimes unseen but ultimately measurable - problems for Lockyer farmers, Brisbane City residents and Moreton Bay fisherman.

Those problems – combined with the fact that the city of Brisbane in early 2013 was within six hours of running out of drinking water because river silt washed downstream during the Australia Day floods blocking the Mt Crosby Water Treatment Plant - prompted the previous Queensland Government and Brisbane City Council to develop a sensible but unheralded piece of legislation in December 2014 called the Resilient Rivers Initiative.

The Mt Crosby Water Treatment Plant provides treated drinking water to 40 per cent of Southeast Queensland.

The policy means the Queensland Government, the Southeast Queensland Council of Mayors, SEQWater, SEQCatchments, Healthy Waterways, and the region's two water suppliers; Queensland Urban Utilities and Unitywater, co-operatively fund erosion-fighting projects in the Brisbane River.

The plan is to reduce the amount of sediment flowing downstream from the Lockyer and Mid-Brisbane River catchment areas by 275,000 tonnes a year.

The work itself is not difficult. Landscape engineers develop plans to stabilise banks and plants are chosen from the region's ecosystem, then re-planted to stabilise the banks for the long term.

Each project costs between $200,000 and $300,000 and the first five of 40 or so that have been identified are now underway.

Jeff Payne's erosion problem at Mocker's Road, Fernvale, is one of those first five key projects with the others at Kenilworth on the Mary River, two on the Stanley River and the fifth above North Pine Dam.

Brisbane's Lord Mayor Graham Quirk – the chair of the Southeast Queensland's Council of Mayors – which represents an area generating one-fifth of Australia's wealth is now asking the Federal Government for a permanent financial contribution to what he described as a "historic" planning arrangement.

"There are important environmental initiatives, there are important water quality initiatives and there are also important outcomes in terms of tourism and the fishing industry," Cr Quirk said.

"This is about keeping farmlands on the farms and about improving the riverbanks to prevent erosion where we can and making sure we improve the quality of the waterways."

The mayors in March 2015 met in Canberra with federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt and asked the federal government to play an ongoing role with the Resilient Rivers Project.

"Minister Hunt made it clear to the Council of Mayors that he would be prepared to provide money for quite a number of projects," Cr Quirk said.

"And he was talking about 40 projects over a period of a few years," he said.

Cr Quirk said the federal government was considering "a few hundred thousand per project" and that will be "spread over three years."

First, the Resilient Rivers project partners need to demonstrate the scheme will work, Cr Quirk said.

"That means getting our act together – and that is why we have come together as a collective group – to demonstrate to him in a sensible way, how it will be done."

Cr Quirk said previously councils and revegetation groups were working on their own priorities.

"The exciting part of this is that it brings everybody together; we were have one plan, one vision and one set of expenditure so that it is directed in a very organised way."

Somerset Regional Council mayor Graeme Lehmann said it was important to tackle the erosion problems upstream – in the Lockyer Valley first - rather than in Moreton Bay.

"We all take water out of Wivenhoe and Somerset and if we can stop the farmland getting into the river and washing down into the bay, it definitely makes things a lot easier."

SEQWater's general manager of water supply strategy and policy, Jim Pruss said severe weather, which produced the erosion, remained a threat to Mt Crosby Water Treatment Plant.

"In this type of conditions - it's fine - there is no problem," Mr Pruss said.

"But as the Lord Mayor said, in January 2013 there was so much water in the water that we could treat the water to get it into the pipes and the reservoirs for the people," he said.

"Anytime you get a weather event of that type of magnitude, you will get the sediments in the river and it makes it difficult to treat."

Two groups of projects have been identified

1 – $5 million for Lockyer Valley revegetation ground works; here priority work in Lockyer Creek, Laidley Creek, Blackfellow, Tenthill and Buaraba creeks is already planned; and

2 - $5 million for the 61 different zones within the 62 kilometres of the Mid-Brisbane River; here the Brisbane River runs downstream to the Mt Crosby Water Treatment Plant.