Tuesday 21 March 2017

Chichester Dam Overflow

BY RACHEL STORER

Chichester Dam supplies water to the Lower Hunter. Image: theherald.com.au 

After a very wet weekend in the Hunter, Chichester Dam, north of Dungog has overflowed.

The spill caused minor flooding in the area with no considerable damage.

After an extremely hot, dry summer the dam saw no increase in levels for 109 days.

The first day of Autumn saw the first bump to levels and there have been consistent rises since.

Nick Kaiser, from Hunter Water, said that Chichester dam rose from 65% capacity to 100% in just three days.

"It's been absolutely pouring buckets up around the catchment, which might not be good news for picnickers, but is great news for our dam levels," he said.

"The consistent rain has boosted our storage and now our total water storage, which is Grahamstown Dam and Chichester Dam, are currently at 82 percent."

Mr Kaiser says that Chichester is designed to spill and that the rain forecasted this week shouldn't cause any risk of flooding.

"There's no risk. More of that water is going to go back down and flow into the rivers. The good news is that we'll have more water flowing into the Williams River which we can then pump into Grahamstown Dam," he said.