Gushing spells huge relief

For water management staff and Councillors at Orange City Council who steered Orange through a major drought, the sight of water gushing over the spillway at Suma Park Dam this week has put a spring in their step.

Strategic Water Manager Wayne Beatty remembers losing sleep about the practicalities of supplying water to Orange residents when the level of Suma Park Dam dropped to 23 per cent of capacity.

“It was a crisis which really prompted the council to tackle the joint questions of broadening the city’s sources of water by building the Macquarie Pipeline and stormwater harvesting and then boosting our storage capacity by raising the height of the dam wall,” Wayne Beatty recalls.

“With all those projects now completed, it’s absolutely fantastic to see the results of that one metre higher wall holding back a completely full dam.”

With recent heavy rain and both Spring Creek and Gosling Creek dams full, the water started to flow over the dam wall at Suma Park on Wednesday this week.

Yesterday there was 200 mm of water flowing over the spillway and there are predictions that’s set to continue for some days.

Orange City Council’s Infrastructure Committee chair Cr Glenn Taylor said the timing of this event couldn’t have been better.

“During the construction phase it was important that the water capacity had to stay below 80 per cent. For all of that work it was well below that level,” Cr Glenn Taylor said.

“Now with the construction complete and only some commissioning and electrical work yet to be finished, the rain has come at just the right time.”

Deputy Mayor Chris Gryllis said the extra one metre of height on the dam wall meant the city had about three years of water supply from the dam alone, based on the current usage rate.

“That’s if there is not a drop of rain ever again,” Cr Gryllis said.

“There is an extra 10 per cent storage capacity now the dam wall has been raised, which takes the supply of Suma Park to nearly 19,000 mega litres.”

OVERFLOW: Orange City Council’s Strategic Water Manager Wayne Beatty checks out the scene as thousands of litres of water flows over the new higher spillway at Suma Park dam.