Our Warragamba Dam Safety Team got straight into action following the tremor, conducting a range of safety checks in line with WaterNSW’s Dam Safety Emergency Plan. This included visual inspections of the dam’s walls and utilising sensory instruments to assess the dam level, river flow and pipeline flows.
In the minutes following the earthquake, the WaterNSW Dam Safety team were able to quickly assess any potential threat to our dams in the impacted area, further refining our assessment of the event as more information came to hand from Geoscience Australia.
“This tremor was well within the tolerances of our dams, so fortunately, in line with our expectations for a smaller seismic event such as this, our teams detected no changes to any of the infrastructure,. It was therefore determined there was no immediate threat or risk to the surrounding community,” Mr Magaharan said.
As a precaution, further inspections were conducted the following day at Warragamba Dam and Prospect Reservoir, along with dams in the Upper Nepean and Blue Mountains.
The nature of our organisation means we are working on the frontline of a changing climate.
The recent Blue Mountains earthquake was just one instance of a natural occurrence that the dams have been built to withstand.
“Our teams are experts in keeping our dams and the community safe and are well-equipped to respond to the next inevitable weather event, protecting our state’s essential source of water now and into the future,” continued Mr Magaharan.
