The Geelong Times has run a front page story on PALM's call for better monitoring of catchment dams within the Moorabool River Catchment.
The catchment has one of the highest ratio of total private dam capacity compared to inflows in Victoria. The volume is equal to that held by Barwon Water's West Barwon Dam in the Otways.
Private dam development is accelerating putting further strain on the State's most flow stressed river. Without better controls, monitoring and compliance the growth in such dams will further erode small gains in environmental flows that have been secured for the river.
PALM is currently finalising a study looking at the last decade of dam growth which it hopes will inform the following action within the latest Central and Gippsland Region Sustainable Water Strategy
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Action 4-13: Review of water resource risks in small, dry, peri-urban catchments |
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Southern Rural Water will lead a project over two years to review resource risk and share evidence and reporting to build a shared understanding with communities on the risks, consequences and mitigation options we can use to address the increasing effects of small catchment dams. This project will focus on the upper Maribyrnong and upper Moorabool catchments (including tributaries) as identified hotspots, but recommendations from this review may be relevant to other catchments. |
The online version of the article can be found here:
https://timesnewsgroup.com.au/geelongtimes/news/srw-urged-to-increase-monitoring-on-unlicensed-dams/