Lake Mulwala water soon to be lowered to control invasive weed

Next month, Goulburn-Murray Water and the Murray Darling Basin Authority will lower the water levels of the lake, so the highly invasive water weed Egeria densa will be exposed to air and winter frosts, causing it to die.

Goulburn-Murray Water water storage services general manager Martina Cusack said it was an especially bad year for the weed, which had been a problem over the last 25 years.

"It takes over the natural weeds and blocks up the whole waterway," she said.

"At one stage we got to about 60 per cent of the waterway clogged up with Egeria."

The weed control process is undertaken every three to five years, with the last water lowering in 2018.

Ms Cusack said the Egeria impacted swimming, boating, water skiing and fishing in the lake, which was an important tourism and community feature.

"[The weed] self-propagates off itself, it doesn't send off seeds.," she said.

"The only way of stemming that propagation is to dry it out and if we get a few frosts over the winter, it will kill it.

"The risk here is if we get continued rains, particularly in the Ovens and Kiewa systems or even above Lake Hume and water starts getting released down to [Lake Mulwala]."

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Ms Cusack said lowering the lake would also allow other maintenance work to be completed.

"We plan to use this opportunity to carry out maintenance under and around the bridge including pylon inspection, as well as lake retaining wall works and erosion repairs," she said.

"It also offers an excellent opportunity for residents around the lake to carry out inspections and maintenance on their own infrastructure, such as jetties, boat ramps, retaining walls and pipe intakes."

The lake is expected to be back to regular operating levels by late August.

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