27th March 2012
Letter to the Editor
RE: WATER STORAGES & FLOODING
I am extremely concerned about the very real possibility of Murray River towns flooding over the next 3 – 6 months, our family settled in this area nearly 150 years ago so we have an inherent knowledge of how our weather works and we don’t need computer programmes either.
FACTS:
Dartmouth dam has remained steady at 80.5% capacity (3,081 gigalitres) right through all the flooding rains we have had, the big concern is our closer dam Hume, the data is as follows:
Prior to the 11-12” or 275 – 300mm of rain we have had recently it was at 67% capacity.
It is now at 88.6% capacity with 2690 gigalitres volume, its total capacity is 3,036 gigalitres, it increased by 630 gigalitres with the last rain.
Now here is the kicker, the BOM predict another 100 – 400 mm of rain in our area and the catchments between April and June this year, this is the same amount as they predicted in the first quarter.
The Murray River is running at its usual summer level at the present time.
What we have is a disaster waiting to happen and the MDBA are doing nothing to try and avoid it. Why for goodness sake why would we want more flooding?
We all know we are in a cycle of extreme wet years and this year is shaping up exactly the same as 1974-75 and 1956.
Peter Gilmour
Cobram
No comments:
Post a Comment