Ditching Eildon capacity policy is long overdue, say local landholders

They say because Eildon was near capacity, heavy rainfall in its catchments would have let to flooding on the Goulburn River, downstream.

Jan Beer runs beef cattle on a property fronting the Yea River, at Cheviot, just south of the town.

"Damage along the Yea River catchment has been fairly extensive, there is a lot of fencing gone, yet again, a lot of people had to get cattle out of flood waters with tractors, bikes, or boats," Ms Beer said.

But she said farmers were angry about the G-MW policy to keep Eildon virtually full, from November 1.

"This could have been the most horrific flood, even worse than October 2022, if there had been the same amount of rain in the Eildon catchment as there was in the Yea River catchment," Ms Beer said.

It was "more good luck, than good management" that the rain did not fall in the catchments above Eildon.

"That policy has to change," she said.

'We are seeing climate change - and farmers are on the front line - we are seeing more intense rain events and thunderstorm cells," she said.

"They come out of nowhere, they are very, very intense, and drop huge amounts of rain."

Andrew Baynes manages the Whanregarwan Pastoral properties along the Yea River and said the area received between 120-150 millimetres, from late on Sunday morning.

"We had about 90 head of Angus heifers on one side of the river, we got all of them safe, then went out to another farm and pulled a pump off the river," he said.

'When we came back they were deep in water," he said

"We got a tinny in there and pushed them out onto the road (the Melba Highway)."

He said on Monday morning, he realised the area had received 100mm of rain.

"All the cattle were on dry land at 6:30am - by 9:30-10am all the paddocks were completely under water," he said.

Another mob of 22 cattle passed under the bridge over the Goulburn Valley Highway, Killingworth, before ending up in the Yea wetlands.

Molesworth contractor Andrew Perry said G-MW staff had acknowledged they "dodged a bullet", when they realised the rainfall was heaviest below Lake Eildon.

"The current concern for landholders is that we are in uncharted waters, as far as weather forecasting is concerned," he said.

"On the back of Cyclone Jasper, our forecasting organisations have admitted as much - they don't have the capacity to judge what is happening."

He said there was a very short time frame to reduce the risk of Eildon spilling, in case of heavy rain in the coming months.

It would take weeks to get the lake down to 85pc, to allow enough air space if the area received a "decent autumn break,' and there was no point claiming the storage was being kept full for irrigators.

'"Water in Eildon is no use for irrigation, because why would you buy it, when it's falling from the sky?" he said.

Thornton's Rowan Kennedy said local landholders had long been asking Water Minister Harriet Shing to direct G-MW to manage Eildon at a capacity that would accommodate a large rain event, somewhere between 88 and 95 per cent.

A Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action desk top study, to determine at what level GMW should manage the storage, was not due until March.

"The problem is that the minister will not give a direction to GM-W to manage the lake at something substantially less than 100 pc until the DECCA desk top study has reported," he said.

The Water Act required GMW to mitigate flooding, he said.

"G-MW could run it at 80pc at the start of a wet year - remember we are only ever talking about a wet year and five out of 25 years are wet," he said.

Blame also needed to be laid at the feet of the Bureau of Meteorology.

"The government says in managing the dams G-MW is required to take advice from the BoM - it's the blind leading the blind, the BoM are hopeless," he said.

"The track record of the Bureau is terrible - only two in ten monthly forecasts have been correct."

Water Minister Harriet Shing said as the Lake Eildon technical assessment continued, Goulburn-Murray Water remained best placed to manage Lake Eildon's levels to provide a safe and secure water supply while offering some flood mitigation where possible.

"The technical assessment will be part of ongoing discussion and consultation with local councils, water corporations and the catchment management authority to determine if changing the way the storage is operated could help mitigate flooding downstream between Lake Eildon and Seymour and the direct and indirect impacts of any changes."

G-MW Water Delivery Services general manager Warren Blyth said ahead of the January 7 rainfall, releases were lowered to 1000 megalitres per day to avoid exacerbating downstream conditions.

"As of January 9, releases from Lake Eildon have been increased to 3000 ML per day to prevent the storage reaching full supply level.

"Increases may need to be increased further but will remain well below the minor flood level."

He said the Victorian Water Act stated the primary role of Goulburn-Murray Water storages was to harvest and store customers' water entitlements, while providing flood mitigation if possible.

"Managing the storage requires long term consideration of flood and drought," Mr Blyth said.

G-MW was fully supportive of the DEECA assessment and was providing information to aid it where possible.