ACTEW Water have announced they’re closing the diversion on the Cotter Dam construction site which means the new dam will start to fill and the old wall is going under.
ACTEW Water’s new Enlarged Cotter Dam will begin impounding water from today.
While this milestone will be welcomed by our previously drought-threatened community, it will mean the old Cotter Dam which has served the city well for the last hundred years, slowly slipping under water.
Closing the 3.4m high river diversion construction gate will allow the mighty dam wall to start doing its job, storing raw water to protect the Canberra community from the threat of severe and prolonged water restrictions such as those that have affected our city and our economy for much of the last decade.
Mark Sullivan, ACTEW Water’s Managing Director believes today’s announcement will be greatly welcomed by the community:
“We are delighted to deliver this major milestone for our customers across Canberra and I am sure they will breathe a collective sigh of relief that they will never return to the threat of such restrictions which blighted our community over the last 10 years. Closing this gate is more symbolic than just a construction milestone, no more will our unpredictable climate dry and parch our city and menace our lives and our economy.”
The gate alone weighs more than 5 tonnes, but with gate guides and hoist assembly that weight is nearer 10 tonnes (about the same as a city bus). Closing the gate will allow the reservoir behind the 80 metre high dam wall to begin doing its job in earnest and take storage from 4 Gigalitres under the old dam, to 78 Gigalitres under the new structure.
[Photo of construction site overspill by Androo]
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