Susanna Freymark
During the February 28-March 1 floods, some farmers queried the amount of water that spilled from Toonumbar Dam at the height of the floods.
The question was raised at a Richmond Valley Council meeting on April 19.
The council’s flood report stated that farmers at Iron Pot Creek, near Kyogle had been asking if water was released from Toonumbar Dam causing extra water flow downstream of the dam.
A WaterNSW spokesman said that Toonumbar Dam was an ungated dam that had been spilling (exceeding 100% of storage capacity) consistently since the last week of November 2021.
“WaterNSW has made no operational, controlled releases from the dam outlets in that time,” the spokesman said.
“During the major inflow event at the end of summer (February 27-March 3) the average daily peak rate of spill from the dam was 6740 megalitres per day on 28 February.”
Downstream of the dam large, flow rates in the creeks were up to 25 times higher than the dam spill volume, due to flows generated by the intense weather event experienced in the region.
WaterNSW is not obliged to inform Kyogle Council of their dam releases or operations. However, WaterNSW has a considerable amount of data available across the state, on rivers, streams and storage dams.
