BATHURST’S water supply at Ben Chifley Dam is set to receive a boost following welcome rain over the past week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
While the super storm which caused havoc in the greater Sydney metropolitan area did not have the same impact on the Central Tablelands, it did dump enough rain on the local area to give farmers a much-needed autumn break, as well as creating inflows into the local impoundment to the south of the city (pictured).
The latest readings from the dam show it is holding steady at 70.6 per cent of capacity, or 21 million litres.
When it is full, Chifley Dam can store 30,800 million litres.
According to Bathurst Regional Council, inflows are currently around two million litres a day.
However, residents are using an average of 16.2 million litres of filtered water a day, which is about 6.4 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Treated water returned to the Macquarie River is averaging eight million litres a day.
Council also notes that, compared to the same time last year, there is five per cent more water in Chifley Dam.
“The water levels at the dam are static at the moment,” a council spokesperson. “While there has been good rainfall in the catchment, at this stage there has been no significant runoff. It has been good soaking rain, which is improving soil moisture levels, but little run-off at this stage.”
However, this could be set to change in coming weeks as the dam’s catchment area is a massive 960 square kilometres and run-off takes time to reach The Lagoon.
Chifley Dam is located on the Campbell’s River, 17 kilometres upstream of Bathurst.
Water released from the dam flows down the Campbell’s River into the Macquarie River. It is then drawn from the Macquarie to supply Bathurst.
Chifley Dam is an earth and rockfill structure. It has an earth wall which is 455 metres long and 34.4 metres high. There is a concrete side channel spillway on the eastern side of the embankment.
There is also a six bay, 172 metre wide emergency spillway excavated into natural material on the western side of the structure, designed to sequentially operate if the side channel spillway cannot cope with high flood flows.
Winburndale Dam to the east of Bathurst is at 95 per cent capacity.
