24 August 2010
Storage Recovery Passes 40% Milestone
Melbourne’s water storages have today passed 40% full for the first time in almost three years.
Storages levels increased by 0.2% today, rising from 39.9% to 40.1% full.
Melbourne’s dams were last 40% full in November 2007 before falling to an all-time low of 25.6% in June last year.
Between November 2007 and June 2008, storages declined from 40% to 30% in 183 days.
In comparison, the recovery from 30% to 40% has taken 311 days, with most of the gain made in recent months due to good rain and runoff, lower water use and additional water from the Sugarloaf Pipeline and Tarago Reservoir.
Manager of Water Supply, John Woodland, said the 40% milestone had approached quickly with storages gaining an average of 1% of capacity a week throughout August.
“Given the high volumes of runoff in recent weeks, it’s likely that storages will continue to rise over coming weeks,” said Mr Woodland.
“The catchments are quite wet and we’re now in the wettest period of the year, so we’d expect to see storages bank more water to build a buffer ahead of the drier, summer months.”
Storages are now holding over 220 billion litres more water than at the same time last year, when they were 27.9% (504.4 billion litres) full.
Last week saw the restart of the Sugarloaf Pipeline following its annual shutdown period, transferring around 300 million litres a day from Lake Eildon into Sugarloaf Reservoir.
The Victorian Government yesterday announced that water restrictions will be eased from Stage 3 to Stage 2 as of 1 September 2010.
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