A BIG jump in the amount of water being released from Lake Hume has left farmers, forced to move stock to higher ground, upset at a website plotting outflows.
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The Murray-Darling Basin Authority upped its daily release tally to 25,000 megalitres on Sunday and Monday after having been at 15,000 megalitres on Saturday and 5000 megalitres last Tuesday.
The move inundated riverside properties and saw the Murray River break its banks at Albury’s Noreuil Park and the bike path between Albury and Wodonga cut off by high water.
The river gauge height at Howlong has gone from 2.18 to 4.48 metres in the last week.
The president of the Murray River Action Group Richard Sargood, who represents waterside property holders, said the ‘live river data’ component of the MDBA website failed his members.
“It was updated about 9am this morning but yesterday and certainly up to nine this morning it was way out of date,” Mr Sargood said on Monday.
“That’s just not good enough when you’re relying on it to make decisions on managing your stock.
“If they call it a live river data site it should be live, not some period of hours or even days old.”
The MDBA’s acting executive director of river management Andrew Reynolds downplayed his web data.
“Our MDBA live river data site is intended to give a broad overview of what’s happening across the whole of the river system,” he said.
“Hume Dam releases are updated once daily.
“At times like now where conditions might change quickly the (weather bureau) is the best place to get the most current information on stream levels, flood watches and warnings.”
Mr Sargood said the weather bureau site was tailored to a more general audience and its flood warnings related to community infrastructure rather than farms.
Mr Reynolds could not say how long the 25,000 daily megalitre releases from Lake Hume would continue.
Mr Sargood said with Lake Hume at 97 per cent capacity his members were on edge for continuing big outflows.
“The releases are certainly understandable, but it’s a bit surprising they didn’t start earlier,” Mr Sargood said.
He believed the MDBA should have had a more gradual increase in the volume of releases and that was his expectation after being told by a manager two weeks ago that air space would be increased in the dam.
Mr Reynolds said the MDBA acted last Monday based on forecast inflows then.
“Dartmouth and Hume dams have been protecting downstream communities including Albury, from moderate flooding in recent days,” he said.
