TERRY Charlton, CEO and Managing Director of Snowy Hydro, confirmed with me this morning by telephone that Snowy Hydro has been making water releases that may have exacerbated current flood conditions in the Murray Darling Basin because of licence conditions imposed by the NSW Office of Water.
Mr Charlton told me that he wrote to the NSW government on April 21, 2010, and raised the potential issue in the licence, the requirement for Snowy Hydro to repay water immediately inflows climbed above a specified long range value.
As recently as last night, December 13, 2010, Mr Charlton was still in talks with the NSW Office of Water asking that this provision in their licence be changed.
“The NSW government appears unable to make any decisions,” said Mr Charlton.
“The situation is ridiculous. We are frustrated. Late last week we pulled back on the water releases but this potentially puts us in contravention of our water licence,” said Mr Charlton.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
So, is the chart I posted yesterday:
http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/files/CalendarSnowyRiverReleaseTargetsOct2010.pdf
At odds with what what the CEO said this morning? Were water releases reduced (as the chart suggest) to 80-100Ml/day back in early november? And When Terry said “late last week we pulled back on the water releases”, does me mean to a level below the 80-100, or does he mean that the 3000Ml/day figure applied until late last week?
Thanks.
Matthew,that target guide is for releases into the Snowy River.
The frustrating thing is there is no such document easily accessible covering the scheduling of mandated releases for SA via the Murray and Murrumbidgee. These also need to be seen in context of power generation releases.
It would be good to see a document outlining the partitioning of what water was released and when.
We still don’t know with any certainty how much water was being released,just Mr Charlton’s comment that releases were pulled back late last week (Thursday 9th?,Friday 10th?)
Someone needs to calculate the contribution to the flood,which may have meant some extra centimetres around Tumut,but very little to the Murrumbidgee,which carried perhaps 80-90% of the flood peak,derived from above the Tumut River junction.
Jen/Deb/Terry,
Still no press releases supporting you from the Irrigators Council
http://www.nswic.org.au/news_pressreleases.shtml
or the voice of Aussie farmers
http://www.nff.org.au/media-releases.html
No support either from the Water Minister
http://www.tonyburke.com.au/file.php?file=/media.html
It can be lonely.
“Matthew,that target guide is for releases into the Snowy River.”
That’s a good point.
So we don’t actually have any numbers on the flows – just an unattributed claim from somebody who went to a meeting with one of the snowy hydro executive. Hmm.
Yep Dennis, I am feeling a bit lonely and frustrated. I just did another Google search and also checked The Australian’s website and a few popular blogs including Andrew Bolts – they aren’t providing any support.
Search ResultsNews for snowy hydro flooding
Dam management blamed for the Tumut River flood
1 day ago
Stewart Smith said at the height of the floods along the Tumut River last week, he couldn’t ascertain from either Snowy Hydro or State Water, …ABC Online – 2 related articles
Major flooding expected on Tumut River
ABC Online – 2 related articles
Jennifer Marohasy » Snowy Hydro tops up floods with environmental flow11 Dec 2010 … I was put through to their media spokesperson, Paul Johnson, who assured me that Snowy Hydro would do nothing to exacerbate the flood crisis …
jennifermarohasy.com/…/snowy-hydro-tops-up-floods-with-environmental- flow/ – CachedJennifer Marohasy » Snowy Hydro Must Immediately Stop Exacerbating …Jennifer Marohasy – a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the …
jennifermarohasy.com/…/snowy-hydro-must-immediately-stop-exacerbating- the-current-flood-crisis/Get more results from the past 24 hours
Jennifer Marohasy » Snowy Hydro Wants Changes to Licence …Jennifer Marohasy – a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the …
jennifermarohasy.com/…/snowy-hydro-wants-changes-to-licence-provisions- to-avoid-exacerbating-flooding/Show more results from jennifermarohasy.comGet more results from the past 24 hours
Quadrant Online – Bureaucratic flood damage?11 Dec 2010 … I was put through to their media spokesperson, Paul Johnson, who assured me that Snowy Hydro would do nothing to exacerbate the flood crisis …
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/…/bureaucratic-flood-damageMurrumbidgee
Floods – forums.ski.com.au4 posts – 3 authors
I don’t think Snowy Hydro had any significant contribution to the Murrumbidgee floods. I recommend you check this page regularly if you don’t believe me: …
forums.ski.com.au/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat… – CachedGet more discussion results
Snowy Hydro gets set for environmental flows – ABC News …20 Sep 2010 … Snowy Hydro is testing equipment that releases water into the key … and there is hope that this year’s flood rains will increase the size …
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/20/3015995.htm – CachedDam management blamed for the Tumut River flood – ABC News …Stewart Smith said at the height of the floods along the Tumut River last …
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/13/3091551.htmShow more results from abc.net.auGet more results from the past 24 hours
Regardless of quantity and impact, there should be no addition to catastrophic flooding from environmental flows performed for contractual reasons. And it should be immediately clear to the public that this cannot happen. Someone should have been able to say to Jennifer: “Of course there have been no environmental releases. It’s a flood!”
Were there, or were there not, environmental flows during the floods? Power generation is an incidental. Any other kind of release is another matter. If one drop of water was fed into the Murray-Darling system purely for licence and “environment” reasons then it’s a scandal.
If it did not happen, I’ll apologise for my heated words. But why isn’t the matter clear? Why aren’t I apologising already?
That is a good point and a good question Robert.
Why isn’t the matter clear?
And if you are not apologising already, why isn’t someone else?
Also a good point about quantity of impact.
This information is not actually a secret, as has been pointed out over the last two days, there have been several people/departments/industry groups etc that have been trying to insert some common sense here. They have not been successful so far.
It appears that no one wants to take responsibility for fixing it.
Meanwhile, it seems there is still extra water flowing down the to the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers through dams that are almost completely out of control. It really shouldn’t be.
The CSIRO and BoM have developed a tool to predict water flows months in advance. Apparently it works.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/14/3092776.htm
Something is wrong, Dr Vertessy says ‘we look at the recent historical rainfall over the last month or two’…
Must be a typo.
eg,
Ask him for a demmo so we can verify it in six months.
[There I go, sceptical again!]
And here’s some more of the same using that popular GIGO code:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-12/uow-dow121310.php
“The CSIRO and BoM have developed a tool to predict water flows months in advance. Apparently it works.”
Seems to me that “it works” has become a very flexible phrase – here it might cover everything from the first computer run without crashing to reasonable agreement with data over an extended period.
@ Another Ian I can’t believe them … they can’t forecast the weather 3 months out so how the hell can this model function?
If it was so good then why didn’t they inform NSW water so the flooding wasn’t magnified?
Jennifer
Thanks for digging this out – I too faced the stone wall – my additional concern was that as SH lowered Lake Eucumbene thousands of frog spawn pods were left stranded high and dry to die through dehydration – this environmental release has caused significant environmental damage to the frog population of the lake. As you know frogs are generally doing it tough now-days and to see so many die needlessly was disappointing – so not only do we have an unacceptable impact downstream we also have another up stream. I have issued a press release and cited your blogg – thanks for doing the hard yards and pinning SH down. If you would like a copy of the press release get in touch and I will forward it to you.
Regards
Steve Samuels
President
Monaro Acclimatisation Society Inc
Hi Steve, please email me a copy of the media release, i could perhaps post it as a new thread, email to jennifermarohasy [at] jennifermarohasy.com . much thanks.
Wow, is Terry actually turning up to work to respond to this?
He only manages 2 days week in the office and then he runs it like it’s his own personal fiefdom.
Snowy needs some new blood and top level management who can actually get the job instead of sitting on their hands and waiting for their extravagent bonuses each year.