Rescuing and Rebuilding the Jemalong Irrigation Website

The client and the challenge

Jemalong Irrigation is a member-owned gravity irrigation company near Forbes in Central West NSW. Formed in 1995, it diverts water from the Lachlan River through about 300 km of channels to shareholder farms covering more than 96,000 hectares. Their website is where members find channel updates, policies, pricing, trading rules and the Around the Channels newsletter.

When they came to us, that website had been left to run itself for years. Over time it had become a “Frankensite”: a pile of plugins added one at a time to solve one problem each. In several cases a plugin with a hundred features was installed to use just one of them.

Then the host updated some plugins automatically, and those updates overwrote custom code the member area relied on. Members couldn’t use it properly. Worse, the membership plugin had locked the entire media library to logged-in users. Every public visitor saw a site with its images gone, even though the files were all still there.

Because most members only log in a few times a year, problems like this can sit unnoticed for months.

Step one: get it working again

We restored the site within a day:

1. Restored the site and its database to a working state.
2. Brought the member area back online.
3. Fixed the membership plugin so the media library was public again, which brought every image back.

The site worked again, but the setup underneath hadn’t changed. The next automatic plugin update could break it the same way.

Step two: a rebuild built to last

We pitched a rebuild rather than another round of patches, and Jemalong agreed. We started with what they actually needed:

• A WordPress login for members. Members need their own secure area, so WordPress stayed the right platform.
• Easy editing for non-technical staff. The team needed to update pages and content without calling a developer.
• Fewer moving parts. Only the plugins the site actually uses.

Here’s what we built:

1. A lightweight theme. The new site runs on the Blocksy theme, which is fast and clean out of the box.
2. Simple page building. We used Stackable Pro blocks in the WordPress editor, so staff build and edit pages by adding blocks, without touching code.
3. A custom member area. We wrote the member login area ourselves, so it does exactly what Jemalong needs and nothing else. No plugin update can overwrite it.
4. Password-free login. We added FluentAuth to the member area so members never need a password (more on that below).

No passwords for farmers

Many Jemalong members only log in once a quarter or a couple of times a year. Few people remember a password they use twice a year.

Now a member just enters their email address. The site emails them a secure link, and clicking it logs them in. There’s no password to forget or reset.

A member who hasn’t visited since last season can still get in within a minute.

Hosting and care

Jemalong now hosts with us and is on an MRK WordPress care plan. We handle the updates now, so plugin changes no longer happen without anyone checking them.

The result

• The site is back, and the member area works.
• Pages load fast.
• Staff edit content themselves, without technical help.
• Members log in with just their email address.
• The site hums along with no issues since launch.

Jemalong were really happy with the result.