Don't panic on water storage levels

Actew Water are getting in early to point out they’ve added the capacity of the new Cotter Dam into their measuring mix.

This means the percentage of water help versus capacity is now lower.

But we haven’t lost more water, just gained more glass to be half full.

Canberra customers could be forgiven for thinking that we’ve experienced a sudden dry spell or that someone had in fact left the plug out.

ACTEW Water is now incorporating the new Cotter Dam into our widely read Water Storage Levels. Canberrans have avidly monitored the volumes of our combined dams through the years of drought, and continue to do so after a few years of wetter weather.

While our total dam storage levels were sitting about 85 percent full, adding an almost empty new Cotter Dam to the equation means that figure has dropped down to around 67 percent of the new total dam storage levels. This is despite not losing a drop of the 185 gigalitres (GL) that we have in storage.