Prime Minister Julia Gillard says it is important for work to continue on a plan to cut back water allocations along the Murray-Darling river system despite recent heavy flooding. Read more here.
Archives for January 2011
Snowy Hydro – The Business: Part 1, by Max Talbot
OVER the last few weeks I have posted information suggesting that Snowy Hydro has not managed the vast waters under its control appropriately and in particular that it has failed to store flood waters for subsequence seasons and even exacerbated flooding in the Riverina by making water releases from Lake Eucumbene – the system’s central reservoir.
Max Talbot was the Executive Officer Strategic Engineering at Snowy Hydro and Operations Engineer Snowy Mountains Council for many years, retiring in 2003. He has written extensively on the Corporation and recently updated a document ‘Snowy Hydro – The Business’ penned in 2008. Mr Talbot has generously given permission for me to publish this document as a four part series. Following is Part 1 – providing an historical perspective.
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More Photographs of the Flooded Fitzroy for Val
I visited Rockhampton on Monday and later posted some photographs of the racing Fitzroy. Val Majkus asked for more. This afternoon I decided to try for some images of the river east of the city, as it heads towards the Coral Sea. From Emu Park I travelled to Nerimbera and down to the boat ramp.
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How much water did Snowy Hydro release from Lake Eucumbene during the floods?
THE managing director of Snowy Hydro, Terry Charlton, denies that Snowy Hydro contributed to the devastating flooding along the Murrumbidgee in early December in which homes were destroyed and wheat fields drown. He does, however, admit that until Wednesday, December 8, water was being released from Lake Eucumbene.
Lake Eucumbene has the capacity to store the equivalent of nine Sydney Harbours and was at only 25 percent capacity.
A chart, recently provided to me by a Snowy Hydro staff member, shows the extent to which lake levels were falling early December.
During just one 24 hour period, between 8th and 9th December, lakes levels fell six centimetres which is equivalent to 6,000 megalitres of water being released.
That is a lot of water; enough water to provide all of Melbourne’s water needs for one week, or grow 5,000 tonnes of rice.
And yet according to Mr Charlton no water was released from Lake Eucumbene during that 24 hour period.
In The Australian newspaper on December 15, journalists Samantha Maiden and Lauren Wilson reported that Federal Water Minister Tony Burke and a spokeswoman for the NSW Office of Water also denied any water was release by Snowy Hydro except from overflowing lower storages because of excessive rainfall and flooding.
The chart of lake levels and an operational plan for Snowy Hydro for December 9th, also provided to me by a staff member, however, indicate that very significant quantities of water were released from Lake Eucumbene.
The communities of the Riverina deserve to know the truth.
Snowy Hydro must make public all the documentation that they hold on all water releases, and also all inflows, for Lake Eucumbene for November and December 2010. Only then will we know the extent to which Snowy Hydro contributed to the flooding – or not.
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Previous posts on this issue can be found by scrolling down here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/tag/snowy-hydro/
The comment thread on this blog post was closed at 12noon on January 05. There will be more posts on this issue providing opportunity for more comment.
My Visit to Rockhampton
Living just down the road from the main news item I thought I should visit Rockhampton. So I did this afternoon. I drove in from Yeppoon and it was not until I crossed the river to the south that I could see flooding and preparations in anticipation of more flooding.
Rockhampton Flooding: Comment from Tony including about the Fitzroy Barrage
THE river at Rockhampton, even while 25 miles from its mouth at the Pacific Ocean, is still tidal, so the salt water backs up into the river with the tides. Fresh water flows down the river. So as a constant supply of fresh water is maintained for supply to the City, the salt cannot be allowed to mix with the fresh. So the Barrage was constructed across the River, not a dam per se, but just a means to keep the salt out of the fresh. Concrete Pylons were constructed, and in the gaps between them large steel gates were installed… Read more here: http://papundits.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/the-rockhampton-flood-crisis-the-fitzroy-river-barrage/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.