Wivenhoe Dam releases to keep homes flooded: Seqwater

Communities will experience prolonged flooding as Wivenhoe Dam’s emergency compartment is emptied in case rain returns, authorities say.

Low-lying communities on the Brisbane River will experience prolonged flooding as Wivenhoe Dam’s emergency compartment is emptied in case rain returns, authorities say.

Queensland’s largest dam is stable at 182 per cent capacity, slightly lower than the 185 per cent peak recorded early on Monday morning.

With about half of the 2.08m megalitre flood-storage compartment full, authorities will continue controlled releases of water throughout the next week.

Flooding in Brisbane and Ipswich. Picture: Liam Kidston

Communities in low-lying areas, such as Goodna in Ipswich, could experience some level of flooding for the next week as Wivenhoe Dam engineers open the taps to empty its emergency flood storage compartment.

While authorities say the controlled releases will not increase flood levels, Seqwater’s Mike Foster acknowledged it would likely cause prolonged flooding in some areas.

“Where houses are at the moment and those properties that are flooded, as we bring those levels down yes that’s the case that some properties may have water longer as we bring those bring those levels down,” he said.

“I think mother nature has taught us many things and mother nature can change really quickly so if we were to get more rain coming in next week … we need to ensure that the dam is ready to be able to deal with another event.”

He said it was critical to empty the compartment as quickly as possible over the next seven days.

This is despite the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting no further significant rain, but an expected thunderstorm on Wednesday.

“Over the next week we’ll be certainly looking to reduce and in fact empty that flood compartment and bring Wivenhoe down back to its full supply capacity,” Mr Foster said.

Devastation at Goodna. Picture: Asmika McCandless

He defended the delay in releasing water, with Wivenhoe Dam at half its capacity when the event started on Wednesday.

Half of the dam and an empty flood compartment was “a very large space that we had available to manage this event”, Mr Foster added.

“That’s allowed us to slowly but surely put controlled releases into the system and allowed us not to exacerbate those flows downstream,” he said.

Wivenhoe and Somerset dams have collectively held back about 2.2m megalitres of water and there has been about 150,000 megalitres of water released into the Brisbane River from Wivenhoe.

“That’s the dam doing what it’s supposed to do, reduce those natural flows,” Mr Foster said.

Department of Water Director-General Graham Fraine said rainfall over catchments had eased but 20 ungated dams are spilling.

Originally published as Wivenhoe Dam releases to keep homes flooded: Seqwater