Farm Dam Construction SWMS

Suits farmers, rural contractors and earthmoving operators who build, enlarge or reshape farm dams with earthmoving plant. It follows the job from the site walk and plant movement plan through services and power lines, clearing, excavating the basin and cut-off trench, building and compacting the wall, working beside water and soft ground, the outlet and spillway, wet weather and shutting the site down. Bulk earthworks on civil sites have their own SWMS.

A dam is a structure, so building a farm dam or reshaping it significantly is construction work (WHS Regulation ss 289 and 290). Plant moves around throughout the job, so the powered mobile plant item is ticked. Also tick work in or near water or other liquid with a drowning risk (s 291(q)) when the dam holds water or the work is beside it, such as reshaping, desilting or enlarging an existing dam; a new dam on dry ground may not need it until water collects. Tick the other items that apply: a trench or shaft deeper than 1.5 metres, such as a cut-off trench (s 291(g)), energised electrical installations or services where overhead lines or underground cables are near (s 291(k)) and a fall of more than 2 metres (s 291(a)). Minor repair or maintenance of an existing dam is not construction work (s 289(3)(d)); there the document works as a written safe work procedure.

New to SWMS? Read What Is A Safe Work Method Statement?

What Is Covered In Our Farm Dam Construction SWMS?

After the standard pre-start checks, the job steps run from “Plan the dam, walk the site and consult” to “Refuel, park, shut down and make the site safe”. The hazards and controls include:

• Dam wall slumping or washing out
• Plant overturning or sliding on the wall and batters
• Trucks overturning at tip points and edges
• Drowning and working alone beside water
• Plant bogged or sinking in soft ground
• Cut-off trench and cut face collapse
• Plant striking people on foot
• Striking underground services
• Contact with overhead power lines
• Flash flooding of the gully
• Open excavations left open to stock and children
• Heat, dust, noise and fatigue on remote jobs

High Risk Construction Work

These high risk construction work items (WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) s 291) are already ticked because they are part of this work. Tick any others that apply to your job:

• Is carried out in an area at a workplace in which there is any movement of powered mobile plant

Licences, Training and Competency

• General construction induction training card (white card) for construction work, and a site induction covering access, the plant movement plan, the water’s edge and the no-go areas (WHS Regulation ss 316 and 317)
• Operators trained and assessed as competent on each plant item and its attachments (no high risk work licence class applies to operating excavators, dozers, scrapers, graders or rollers for their designed purpose; Schedule 3 of the WHS Regulation)
• Current driver licence for the class of each truck and vehicle driven on the property and on public roads
• Spotters trained in the site’s hand signals or radio calls, the machines’ blind spots and the no-go areas
• Competent person, such as a civil or geotechnical engineer, to advise on the dam site, wall, batters, borrow areas, spillway and outlet; where a trench 1.5 m or more deep is not shored, benched or battered, the written advice that all sides are safe from collapse must come from a geotechnical engineer (WHS Regulation s 306(4))
• Safety observer trained for the role where plant works near overhead power lines
• Dogging high risk work licence (Schedule 3) for anyone who slings pipe or other loads, or directs a plant operator moving a load that is out of the operator’s view (Schedule 19 ‘dogging work’)
• First aid equipment, facilities and trained first aiders (or access to them) to suit remote work and the distance from medical help (WHS Regulation s 42)

Legislation and Codes of Practice Referenced

• Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld)
• Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld)
• Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld): ss 289 and 290 (construction work and structure, including dams and earthworks), s 291 (high risk construction work), s 299 (safe work method statements) and ss 304 to 306 (excavation work, services and trenches)
• Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld): ss 214 and 215 (powered mobile plant), s 43 (emergency plan) and ss 56 and 57 (noise)
• Excavation Work Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Risks of Plant in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Rural Plant Code of Practice 2024 (in-field traffic management 7.10; isolated work and fatigue, section 9 and Appendix 11)
• Managing Noise and Preventing Hearing Loss at Work Code of Practice 2021
• Managing the Work Environment and Facilities Code of Practice 2021
• Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice 2021
• How to Manage and Control Asbestos in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• First Aid in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks Code of Practice 2021
• Work Health and Safety Consultation, Co-operation and Co-ordination Code of Practice 2021
• Children and Young Workers Code of Practice 2006 (dams as hazardous places for unsupervised children on rural properties)
• Electrical Safety Act 2002 (Qld)
• Electrical Safety Regulation 2026 (Qld): overhead and underground electric line duties (ss 13 to 15) and the exclusion zones in sections 10 to 13 and schedule 2
• Electrical Safety Code of Practice 2020 – Working near overhead and underground electric lines (distances come from the 2026 Regulation)
• Safe Work Australia model Code of Practice: Managing the risk of fatigue at work (model code, not approved in Queensland; guidance only)

What You Get

• An editable Microsoft Word document (18 A4 landscape pages). Type your business, client and job details once and they fill in on every page, with a space for your logo
• 11 job steps for this work, each with its hazards, controls, initial and residual risk scores and the person responsible
• PPE listed for this job: safety boots with non-slip soles; high-visibility long-sleeved shirt and long pants; hard hat and safety glasses when outside the cab
• Emergency arrangements for: person in the water, plant overturns, slides or sinks and plant contacts an overhead line
• Plus the parts every Work Safety QLD SWMS shares, from the s 291 checklist to the worker sign-on sheet (see the layout in our free SWMS template)

Adjust it for your site, plant and crew, and talk it through with your workers before work starts. Please make sure you read our Disclaimer before downloading this SWMS.

Checked against the Queensland laws and codes of practice listed above. Last reviewed November 2026.