11 May 2005

Images of Canberra - Tantangara Dam in the early morning

| johnboy
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Ari has very kindly sent in a wonderful pic taken at Tantangara Dam of an early morning.

Early Morning at Tantangara

Got a picture in or of Canberra you want to share? email it to johnboy@the-riotact.com.

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I know it’s selfish – but I’ll indulge my fishing over public policy any day.

Johnboy, edit the weblink, it’s throwing the site out of whack. Stinkin WordPress.

Canberra_unsung_hero9:34 am 13 May 05

LOL !

Ari, the priority is gorgeousness and fishing? ……no no, I’ll let it lie this time. Forget I said anything.

Canberra_unsung_hero9:18 am 13 May 05

Minister for Water Resources take note !

Despite the fact you have to drive over 100km to get to Tantangara (via Adaminiby), it’s actually only about 15km (as the crow flies) from the ACT.

The other thing that would have to be worked out is that Tantangara is sort of the header tank for the whole Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme and the Authority seems very keen to run it very low (currently something like 4%) for most of the year and funnel all the water into Eucumbene. There’s an underground tunnel from Tantanagara to Eucumbene that enters the latter lake at Providence Portal (this 20 or 30km tunnel is one of the engineering feats that were so celebrated about the Snowy Mountains Scheme).

A pipeline from Tantangara to the ACT would certainly be technically feasible, but I’m not sure it would be politically feasible as there are some national park “issues” – think STR on an even bigger scale.

With all that said – I’d rather Tantangara was kept out of Canberra’s plans. As you can see from the photo it’s gorgeous and I’d like it to stay just the way it is (with access for me to go fishing).

http://www.actewagl.com.au/default.aspx?loc=/water/dailyConsumption.htm

Say 160 Mega Litres a day on quick average. 1 thousand Ml to Gl means 1 GL every 6.25 days. 1875 days, over three years, to go through 300 GL.

Problem fixed, build the fucking pipeline already.

My own personal “Hoff Warning” goes off every time I see Random’s name.

Canberra_unsung_hero9:06 am 13 May 05

Me too Random …..do we have a Civil Engineer or somebody from ACTEW (water section ) on the side ?
I’d like to know too !

No, I am genuinely ignorant of water consumption metrics.

Canberra_unsung_hero8:54 am 13 May 05

Is that a rhetorical question Random ?

So building a pipeline from TanTanDam to one of our reserves would be more economical and intelligent solution than building a whole new dam?

300 Gigalitres….. how long would it take us to go through that much?

Canberra_unsung_hero8:43 am 13 May 05

About the Tantangara Dam —

The Tantangara Dam was built in 1951 to divert and store water from the upper Murrumbidgee River to the Tumut River and the Swampy Plains River (a tributary of the Murray River). The dam’s capacity is 254 GL (billion litres), which is greater than the combined capacity of the four other ACT storages

(Corin – 75 GL; Bendora – 11 GL; Cotter – 4.7 GL; and Googong – 123 GL).

As Tantangara is seldom more than 30 per cent full, it is an ideal location to store water for the ACT without building a new dam. However there is a significant cost in transferring the water 100 km downstream from Tantangara to the ACT.

In an average year, the runoff into Tantangara dam is 300 GL. The runoff comes from melting snow, which is a reliable water source. According to a study by Marsden, Jacobs and Associates, the loss of water during transmission from the dam to the weir sites near Yaouk would be less than 1%. If the water flows to the ACT, the loss during travel would be 20 to 35%.

ACT has in the past obtained water from Tantangara Dam. During the 1965 to 1968 drought, watering of home gardens was restricted to a hand-held hose from 6 to 7 pm. An emergency release of water from Tantangara Dam was arranged from 20 February to 10 April 1968 and the water that reached Canberra was pumped into Cotter Dam.

Surely the fact that I am posting is Hoff warning enough by now? And whatever happened to ‘asking nicely’?

Canberra_unsung_hero8:11 am 13 May 05

I’ll just type “tantangara dam” into a search engine and see what comes up .

Em – OK, Hoff warnings will go into titles.

Canberra_unsung_hero5:08 pm 12 May 05

It’s a marvellous picture …where is it ?

Too bad, get a new job.

Another very pretty picture. Much nicer than those Hoff pics some wanker keeps including for no reason in their news articles. By the way, the Hoff pics are particularly annoying when you work in a place that automatically scans what you’re viewing for skin tones as part of its zero tolerance on porn. I do NOT want to have to explain why I’m looking at pics of a talentless has-been!

I love the way the cloud reaches all the way down to earth over in the left of shot.

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