Cyclone Alfred: No dam releases until it rains, says Seqwater

Not a single litre of water will be released from South East Queensland’s major dams until the rain from Tropical Cyclone Alfred starts to fall.

Water is released from Wivenhoe Dam in 2022.

• Editor’s view: Come clean please

Not a single litre of water will be released from South East Queensland’s major dams until the rain from Tropical Cyclone Alfred starts to fall.

Despite the region’s dams being almost full – and 600mm of rain forecast – Seqwater confirmed on Monday it would not be pre-emptively releasing water despite the forecast.

Seqwater said its flood manual that was drawn up after the 2011 disaster dictated that decisions about when and if to release water should be based on rain that had actually fallen – rather than solely on what was forecast to fall.

“We don’t always know when and where rain will fall,” a spokeswoman said.

“Our 24/7 Flood Operations Centre is mobilised and – pending rainfall – is prepared to make controlled, gated releases later this week if required.”

Wivenhoe Dam is 86 per cent full, Somerset Dam is at 80 per cent and North Pine Dam just 1.2 per cent below capacity.

The Gold Coast’s Hinze Dam is 99.5 per cent full.

But the Seqwater spokeswoman said the large “flood storage compartments” at Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine dams that were above the nominal 100 per cent levels remained fully available.

“Specialist flood engineers will continue to monitor and act in response to rainfall and inflows in the catchment,” the spokeswoman said.

“Seqwater has several early preparation measures underway including optimising the SEQ Water Grid, maximising local water reserves and stockpiling water treatment chemicals to prepare for potential road closures.”

The Seqwater spokeswoman conceded the dam manual offered limited guidance on what to do in the case of a tropical cyclone, but instructs engineers to use a flood forecasting system to account for predicted inflows and time-gated releases.

Premier David Crisafulli called for Seqwater to be more transparent with anxious Queenslanders about the plan for water releases.

“Obviously the reason why the questions are so valid is there is water in the system at the moment and you do have catchments that have had rain, so on the back of it, that has to be factored into their modelling,” Mr Crisafulli said in his lunchtime update.

“We’re asking them to explain that – because that’s important to people from the point of release to when you might see that in the CBD, there’s a few days in there.

“It’s important that they communicate that with Queenslanders, because you’ve got a whole heap of people who are anxiously watching the forecast.”

Originally published as Cyclone Alfred: No dam releases until it rains, says Seqwater