Toowoomba Regional Council pumps from Perseverance Dam as levels rise

After the latest string of heavy rainfall, a regional Queensland council has had to make moves to secure and maintain its dam levels.

Perseverance Dam overflowing and spilling downstream. February 2022.

Toowoomba Regional Council has had to start juggling the region’s water sources around, as heavy rainfall hits Queensland and dams start to fill to capacity.

On Tuesday morning, Perseverance Dam measured at 99.8 per cent full, only 111 megalitres from capacity, prompting the council to start pumping drinking water out of the un-gated dam, diverting the water flow from Cressbrook Dam.

Lake Perseverance and spillway. Thursday 23rd September 2021 Picture: David Clark

Perseverance was spilling Tuesday morning, with the water starting to flow downstream and into Cressbrook Dam.

While this is the usual run of the water, it has posed another problem to council, as they attempt to drop the Cressbrook Dam levels down to 70 per cent in anticipation of safety upgrades.

Since mid-2024, council had been drawing the region’s drinking water from the dam, but in response to last week’s heavy rain, have started pumping drinking water from Perseverance instead, the region’s deputy mayor Rebecca Vonhoff said.

Strategic Water Planning and Capital Delivery portfolio of Deputy Mayor Rebecca Vonhoff said council was monitoring the dam levels there was had been no emergency plans activated. Picture: Christine Schindler

There has been no activation of the dam’s emergency plans and council is keeping close watch, monitoring the water levels with more rainfall on its way, she said.

Perseverance has now become the major supplier of the region’s water, as council turned off a number of the bore stations in order to manage dam levels for the wet summer ahead.

Cressbrook Dam is currently at 78.2 per cent, 2.5m below spillway level, with Cooby Dam at 88.8 per cent full.

In 2020, the state government required Toowoomba Council to “substantially” complete the new safety legislation upgrades to Cressbrook Dam by 2025.

Currently the upgrade would widen the dam’s spillway by 35m, and heighten the wall by 2.5m, and would mean the dam could withstand a 1-in-470,000 year event, lowering the dams risk of failure to “as low as reasonably practicable”, a TRC spokesman said.

The plans are subject to be revised once designs and construction begin, he said.

The council is still scrambling to secure state and federal funding for the $270 million project, along with trying to both drop and maintain the highly variable water levels in Cressbrook Dam in a season that is already proving to be packed with rain bombs. 

Originally published as Toowoomba Regional Council pumps from Perseverance Dam as levels rise