Water diverted to lakes to prevent ‘nuisance flooding’

“Water was diverted into Greens Lake and Lake Cooper from the Cornella Creek Catchment,” G-MW emergency controller Peter Clydesdale said.

“This helped prevent water backing up at Colbinabbin, which would have potentially caused nuisance flooding.

“We began to divert water to Greens Lake and Lake Cooper from the Cornella Creek Catchment as soon as practicable.

“Some flows from the Waranga Western Channel and Waranga Basin were also diverted into Greens Lake and Lake Cooper.

“Greens Lake and Lake Cooper are used as a last resort; water is only diverted into them for flood mitigation purposes.”

G-MW temporarily stopped diversions to Lake Cooper on October 18 to ensure air space remains available.

Greens Lake was at 37.6 per cent capacity on October 19, and diversions are continuing as needed while air space is available.

Greens Lake was decommissioned as a water storage facility by G-MW in 2019; however, the pipe connecting the lake to the irrigation delivery network remains.