Weirs on the Murray River in Victoria and New South Wales are about to be reinstated, as flood waters pass downstream to South Australia.
The Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) river management head David Dreverman, said it was important to return the amenity of well managed weir pools.
"We are grateful to local communities for their patience while work is underway to have the locks and weirs functioning again for the summer,” Mr Dreverman said.
“This infrastructure brings great economic benefit to many communities by enabling navigation the length of the river, tourism and recreation, and access to irrigation water.
"Re-installing the weirs is safe and relatively quick, thanks to significant investment by basin governments over the last decade to improve flood operations,"
The weirs were removed in October to safely allow flood waters to pass unencumbered.
The Euston weir (lock 15) was successfully reinstated last week.
Work at the Wentworth weir (lock 10) would start today (Wednesday, December 14).
Mr Dreverman said work to reinstate the Mildura weir (lock 11) was expected to start on Friday, December 16, given the current rate at which the river was falling.
"This work has been brought forward by a few days in response to irrigator feedback, to limit the period in which pumping from the river might be impacted," Mr Dreverman said.
"The process of reinstating the weir is likely to take between two and five days, and it would be about another seven days before the weir pool returns to full supply level.
"Timing the reinstatement of the weirs depends on how quickly the river recedes. As it happens, we expect flows at Mildura to fall to a critical point that coincides with the Christmas period.
"Waiting until after Christmas would have risked low flows at Mildura impacting on the local tourism industry and irrigators' access to water.
“To take action earlier, when river levels were higher, would have risked the integrity of the weir structure and safety of the operators.
