WATERING NEW SOUTH WALES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 96, 16 January 1918, Page 7

WATERING NEW SOUTH WALES

THE BURRINJUCK DAM

NEARLY COMPLETED

(By the Special Correspondent of the

Melbourne "Age.")

A great irrigation scheme is Hearing completion in the Riverina district of Now South AYales. In another ..twelve mouths or so the whole of the flow of the Murrumbidgeo River will bo harnessed and made available for the purpose of intonso culture. The great Burrinjuck dam, illustrations of which are such features among the advertisements displayed in Sydney trams, has already piled up the Jlurrunibidgeo waters into an immense inland sea; miles and miles of irrigation channels arc conducting them on to fruitful soils, and in their wake (all within tho past few years) prosperous townships of irrigation settlers have been dotted over tlio countryside. But tho Burrinj'uok dam is hardly finished. There- is yet a deal of its upper masonry and reinforced concrete to lay in place, and it is expected that eighteen mouths will elapse before it will be able to deal, as planned, with the whole of tho Murrumbidgeo catchment. When it does tho vast island sea it is forming will carry a stupendous amount of water—roughly 33,000,000,000 cubic feet, or a greater volumo of water than is contained in Sydney Harbour. This comparison will convey to people who as yet have not taken more than a passing interest in tho Murrumbidgeo storage tho immensity of the scheme. To Victorians especially, who have a big schoino in oporation for harnessing the waters of the Goulburn Valley by moans of tho Sugarloaf dam, an interesting comparison may be secured. It will be realised with this immense storage of the Murrumbidgeo irrigation scheme in mind that there is hardly likely, even with two or three succcssivo years of drought, to be a shortage of water for irrigation purposes on tho Murrumbidgee settlement area.

The story of the construction of the Burrinjuck dam is practically the story of irrigation in New South Wales. Like most big Government schemes, it was many years under discussion before a commencement was made with tho work. Tho first proposals for irrigation in Now South Wales took tangible form as tho result of a royal commission 011 water conservation, which concluded its sittings in 1887. This commission suggested, amongst other proposals, the construction of canals from tho Murrumbidgee River to supply irrigation water to the lands lying in tho arid zone of tho river's lower valley. It was jiot until, twenty years later, however—l9o4—that Parliament acted on tho recommendation, and ordered tho work of constructing irrigation canals on tho north bank of the Murruinbidgee to proceed. Water measurements taken and other investigations carried out during the twenty previous years had shown , that nearly the whole flow of the Murruinbidgeo was contributed by ilio catchment situated above the town of Gundagia. The area above this point is 8000 square miles, and varies in elevation between 2000 foot and 5000 feet, the higher elevations being snow-covered in winter. The most suitable site which presented itself for the construction of the regulation ro» servoir was at Burrinjuck, at tho confluence of the Goodradigbeo and Murruinbidgeo rivers. It consisted (if a deep gorge below the junction of the rivers, wherein the river channel was confined between the high walls of solid red granite. On one side were tho majestic heights of Black Andrew Mouutain, and on the other Burriniuck, its summit reaching 2200 feet nbovo the river bed. Open river Hats at tho junction of tho two streams provided an area above this gorge for a storage basis. To-day theso flats are covered to a deptli of almost 150 feet by the water held up by tho uncompleted dam. As the dam stands to-day it may bo viewed almost in its completed state. It has backed up the waters over the whole of tho storage Hats, 3500 acres in extent, and as soon as it is completed waterwill bo held up the Yass River (which junctions with the Muriumbidgeo thirteen miles above the dam) as far as twenty-two miles, up the Goodradigbeo River to fifteen iiiilesj and up Iho Murninibidgeo to 41 miles. The measurements of the dam wall lire:—242 feet height above foundation, 200 feet maximum depth of storago, 765 feet length cf crest, and it is curved to a radius of 1200 feet. Tliis compares very favourably with tho oilier great irrigation dams o[ thn world.