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.