Tweed Shire expects to start rolling out water restrictions within next few weeks and rest of the Northern Rivers region likely to be following its lead sooner rather than later

NSWDPI Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) mapping, 23 September 2023. CDI = Combined Drought Indicator. RI = Rainfall Index. SWI = Soil Water Index. PGI = Pasture Growth Index. DDI = Drought Direction Index

Click on map to enlarge

There are 19 large dams on NSW regional regulated rivers and hundreds of smaller dams, reservoirs & weirs associated with a mix of environmental use, off-farm agricultural and urban water storage on other rivers.

Across the seven local government areas in the Northern Rivers region water storage locations include:

Toonumbar Dam

Rocky Creek Dam

Clarrie Hall Dam

Emmigrant Creek Dam

Korrumbyn Creek Dam

Shannon Creek Dam

Bray Park weir

Tyalgum weir

Mullumbimby Power Station weir

Jambour weir

Kyogle weir

Nymboida weir

Rushforth Road 100ML Reservoir.

Tweed Shire Council is strongly alerting its residents and ratepayers as to the current situation and what may lie ahead.

The Echo, 27 September 2023:

Following the devastating floods of 2022 we are back to dry weather. The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has declared an El Nino weather pattern and it has predicted that there will be less-than-average rainfall in the Northern Rivers this year. Tweed Council is reminding residents and visitors that it is important to save water as we head into dry weather.

‘Without significant rain, the Tweed will head into water restrictions, with restrictions for Tyalgum looking likely in the next few weeks,’ said Tweed Shire Council’s (TSC) water and wastewater business and assets manager Michael Wraight.

‘We source our water from the Tweed River at Bray Park and Uki, plus the Oxley River at Tyalgum. The river flows are down and the weir pools at Bray Park and Tyalgum are drying up.

‘While Clarrie Hall Dam is currently sitting at 98 per cent capacity, it will now drop about 1 to 1.5 per cent, per week, as we start releasing water to supply the Bray Park Weir – the source of water for most of the Shire.

‘We will trigger level 1 water restrictions when the Clarrie Hall Dam level drops to 85 per cent.

‘Restrictions at Tyalgum will be introduced sooner. The flow of the Oxley River at Tyalgum is down to a trickle and the weir pool there is dropping fast.’