RECENT rain has led to storage levels at Lake Glanmaggie jump to 91 per cent.
Southern Rural Water is maintaining some storage space in Lake Glenmaggie in anticipation of further autumn rains.
SRW east water supply manager Terry Clapham said heavy rainfall last week and over the weekend meant that the storage levels had jumped sharply from 77 per cent to 91 per cent, or just over 25,000 megalitres.
“We are now releasing about 3,000 ML per day to manage the level of the reservoir in anticipation of more autumn rains. This is well below minor flood levels, which start at 7,500 ML per day,” he said.
Mr Clapham said because Lake Glenmaggie was a small storage compared with the catchment behind it, it had limited capacity to make a big difference during major floods.
“However, the airspace we are maintaining gives us some ability to reduce the impact of minor or moderate floods on areas downstream,” he said.
Mr Clapham said SRW would monitor the situation at Glenmaggie carefully over the next few months, including short and medium-term weather forecasts, and storage levels.
On top of its release strategy, SRW has also announced an increased in allocation for Macalister Irrigation District irrigators.
“This rain has reduced the demand for water and significantly increased our storage levels,” Mr Clapham said.
“As we now have more water than we can deliver before the end of the season, we are increasing the allocation to its maximum, which is 100 per cent high reliability water and 100 per cent low reliability. This is the same allocation as we reached last year.”
The water corporation has also announced that it would now launch its flood update webpage any time releases climb above 3500 ML per day for Glenmaggie, Cowwarr Weir, Blue Rock and Lake Narracan.
“We know that people have a keen interest in how we manage Glenmaggie and our other Gippsland storages,” Mr Clapham said.
“The decision to launch our update pages much earlier than we did previously will help people to keep an eye on what’s going on, and give warning if levels start to climb towards minor flood.”
For more information on how Glenmaggie is managed during floods, visit www.srw.com.au or phone Southern Rural Water on 1300 139 510.
