Skip to main content
Home
  • The Legislative Assembly meets on 16/04/2024 (01:00 PM)
    Assembly sit 16/04/2024
  • The Legislative Council meets on 16/04/2024 (01:00 PM)
    Council sit 16/04/2024
  • The Public Administration meets on 08/04/2024 (10:00 AM)
    Committee meet 08/04/2024

Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 745 asked in the Legislative Council on 12 August 2020 by Hon Alison Xamon

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

WATER SECURITY — LAKE ARGYLE

745. Hon ALISON XAMON to the minister representing the Minister for Water:

I ask this question on behalf of Hon Robin Chapple, who is out of the chamber on urgent parliamentary business.

I refer to Lake Argyle and its monitoring.

(1) What is the current amount of water stored in the dam by volume and by depth?

(2) What is the predicted amount of water stored in the dam by volume at 31 December 2020?

(3) What is the predicted amount of water stored in the dam by volume at 31 December 2021, assuming comparable weather?

(4) At what stage, if any, do water use restrictions from Lake Argyle begin to apply, and for what purposes are they applied?

Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:

I thank the member for the question. The following information has been provided by the Minister for Water.

(1) The water level in Lake Argyle on Tuesday, 11 August was 83.13 metres on the Australian height datum, which is 3 929 gigalitres.

(2) Assuming there is no rain between now and 31 December 2020, the water level is projected to be 80.5 metres AHD, which is 2 697 gigalitres.

(3) Assuming the weather is comparable with last wet season, the lake level is anticipated to be around 77 metres AHD, or 1 528 gigalitres.

(4) Water restrictions would be applied in a staged way if storage drops below trigger levels. The ''Ord Surface Water Allocation Plan'' outlines the lake levels that trigger the sharing of water for irrigation, environmental water releases and hydropower releases. There is only a very low probability that Lake Argyle will drop below irrigation trigger levels in the period until December 2022.