Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / The Darwin River dam is at 98%, the fullest it's been in years, Eric Boyle from Power and Water is hopeful it can be full with a little more rain

Transcript

The Darwin River dam is at 98%, the fullest it's been in years, Eric Boyle from Power and Water is hopeful it can be full with a little more rain · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now an interesting bit of news that is floating around
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and I got told about this yesterday. The Darwen River
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Dam is apparently at ninety eight percent. It's the highest
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: since twenty eighteen. Now joining me on the line to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: tell us a little bit more about this is Eric Boyle,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the senior manager of Service Delivery Water Services with Power
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and Water. Good morning to you, Eric, Good morning key.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: How are you very well? Thank you? How are you?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I'm well, thank you, Eric.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Ninety eight percent at the Darwen River Dam. Last time
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: this happened twenty eighteen.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Yees, so pretty exciting. We usually have vets in the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: office to see who's going to hit the dates, so
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know who's going to be closest this year run,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: but it's going to be pretty pretty soon.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: When do you reckon it's going to happen?
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  Speaker 2: We're predicting probably the next six or seven days, just
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: depends on what the ren does mid to late next week,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: so yeah, round about that time.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And Eric, what does it mean once once the Darwen
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: River Dam reaches its full capacity?
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: What does main So, just to the side of the
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: main dam wall itself, there's a there's a thing called
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: a spillway. And it's the height of that is slightly
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: lower than the level of the main dam. So what
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: happens is as the dam fills up and we call
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: it one hundred percent when it hits that spill way
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  Speaker 2: because it then overflows over that spillway and runs down
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: down river.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: And obviously it's you know, it's a good thing. It
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: means we've got plenty of water. I know that you
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: know in recent years and at different times, there has
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: been the concern that you know that the dam hasn't
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: been as full as we'd like it to be.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, we obviously am really excited when we
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: do hit this one hundred percent because it kind of
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: gives us a reset. But we've got models that go
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: back fifty years and we understand that we can have
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: several dry years, which we've just we've just had. Two
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: years ago we were sitting at sixty seven percent and
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: last year we were sitting eighty four, so we've kind
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: of crept back up again. But if we were to
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  Speaker 2: have that those extended dry seasons, the dam were deplete
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: and then we'd be struggling to figure out how we're
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: going to keep up with current demand.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And it's always an interesting one. You know, whenever we
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: talk about about there not being enough water when we
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: live in a place like Darwin and you see so
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: much rain, a lot of people find that hard to
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  Speaker 1: sort of believe. But you know, it's something you and
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  Speaker 1: I have even spoken about over the years.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Before.
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  Speaker 1: You said though, that the refilling is really a bit
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  Speaker 1: of a reset. Does it mean that it's something that
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  Speaker 1: you then have a couple of years up your sleeve,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: or you know, what kind of impact does it have
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  Speaker 1: longer term?
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: So I guess there's a few things in the Akkad.
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  Speaker 2: I mean we as you know, we've got our Living
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Water Smake program on at the moment where we're trying
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  Speaker 2: to encourage people to be a little bit more thoughtful
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  Speaker 2: about how they use water, so that obviously impacts how
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: much we use and that therefore gives us the ability
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: to extend that storage level out so that when we
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: get to this time next year, i've been careful through
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: the for the rest of the wet season and through
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: the dry season, then perhaps we won't have as much
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: catch up to do when the wet season comes, because,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: as you know, with the rain here, we get these
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: huge downpours, but down of a catchment's very small, so
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: we need to make sure. We need to hope that
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: that rain falls in the catchment so we get that
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  Speaker 2: water to flow back into the dam, and that doesn't
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: always happen.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I suppose then there is water our backups.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: We have got the other one of the is it
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  Speaker 1: Mountain Dam that's the backup for us.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: So we've got Mountain Dam that's programmed to come back
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  Speaker 2: online at some time in the future. I'm quite sure
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  Speaker 2: of the timing on that. And then of course we've
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  Speaker 2: got the Arrows project, which is probably a number of
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  Speaker 2: years away, but that will be another source that we'll
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  Speaker 2: be able to utilize in the future. But we've also
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  Speaker 2: got our bow fields out in Howard East which give
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: us about twenty to twenty five percent water as well.
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  Speaker 2: But obviously that water we've got to be extra careful
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  Speaker 2: with because that's a limited supply. Similarly with down of
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: us limited as well. But that is a mean source.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: And Eric, how are territories going at the moment when
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: it comes to that water usage. Is that campaign having
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  Speaker 1: a bit of an impact?
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  Speaker 2: I think it is yet. We published some numbers late
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: last year. I can't remember off the top of my head,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: which is what they are. I need to write them
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: down next time. But yeah, there was some promising results
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: from that to sure that we're heading in the right direction.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: But I think there's still a long way to go.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: I mean I I walk around, I drive around, and
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: I still see sprinkles on in the middle of the
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: when it's raining, and I just scratch my head and say, well,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: you know, how can we still do this anyway? Those
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: are things that we're trying to manage.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's always good to catch up with you, Eric.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: We appreciate your time, and let's see who gets it right.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: What day the Darwin River Dam is going to reach
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  Speaker 1: that one hundred percent.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Thanks Katie, Thanks for giving me the opportunity. Thank you.