The water authority did so in a 45-minute webinar that attracted 280 viewers on Wednesday last week, but it was not sufficient to stop a planned protest at the 304,000-megalitre water storage facility on Sunday.
More than 100 bucket-carrying protestors formed a high-vis, gumboot-wearing line of people who transferred water from an accessible point of the full to the brim lake to an area 50 metres or so to its west.
While having no impact on the actual storage levels, it was a powerful messasge designed to respond to the webinar messaging that unless the BOM predicated a major weather event, the purpose of Lake Eppalock would remain as a water storage facility, not a flood mitigation device.
G-MW water storage services manager Martina Cusack and river operations manager Andrew Shields presented the webinar, detailing the operation, storage levels and future of the facility which, when it spilled in October last year, sent a wall of water downstream to Rochester, where 95 per cent of homes in the town were impacted.
Lake Eppalock’s failure to handle the October 2022 rainfall conditions and G-MW’s decision not to increase water releases from the facility were at the heart of the messaging by the self-acclaimed “bucket brigade’’.
They gathered at the site as major Melbourne news services promoted the protest and further explained to a far reaching audience that the lake, without any major infrastructure work, would one day again cause all sorts of havoc on the levels of the Campaspe River and, in turn, spell another disaster for Rochester.
Stopping short of chanting the words “big shiny gates’’, in reference to their desire for the installation of controlled spillway flood gates, the group has expressed concern that it won’t be until after the first anniversary of the October 2022 flood event that any report is delivered on the future operation of the lake.
A consultancy firm has been engaged to investigate what mitigation measures could be introduced at Lake Eppalock. That report is due to be delivered in November.
Last week’s webinar delivered the simple messaging that “Goulburn-Murray Water’s primary obligation (at Lake Eppalock) is to store and deliver water on behalf of individual entitlement holders’’.
“Eppalock is there for harvesting water, not flood mitigation”, were Ms Cusack’s exact words.
Mr Shields said Lake Eppalock was currently at 98.5 per cent capacity (299,980GL) and G-MW was releasing 160Ml a day.
“We are monitoring the forecast and talking with the BOM regularly and may pre-release ahead of a rain event,” he said.
Many Rochester residents remain living in temporary accommodation, such as caravans or other emergency situations, while others are embroiled in insurance angst to have repairs completed to their homes.
The community has been the loudest in regard to the Victorian Flood Inquiry submissions, accounting for three quarters of the feedback to the committee, which will stage public hearings in August, including in Rochester and Echuca.
A flood mitigation committee has been raised in the Rochester community to campaign for flood mitigation infrastructure in the form of flood gates to be constructed at Lake Eppalock, but its calls have so far fallen on deaf ears.
A report regarding the future operation of the Knowsley water storage facility is due to be delivered in November, more than a year after the facility overflowed into the Campaspe River and caused the devastation of the small community.