Page 4302 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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here have had the pleasure, of visiting the dam construction site. I am sure that all members have been impressed by the scale and size of the project and how all the different aspects of the project are fitting together to provide our community with a piece of infrastructure that is, of course, of national significance.
Work is progressing well on the project. Once again, of course, Mr Speaker, the Liberal Party are not particularly interested in a project that is securing water supplies for the Canberra community. Of course, when it comes to the Liberal Party they are all about the glass being half empty. That is their view of the world.
About 25 per cent of the work at the Cotter Dam is already complete. Work is progressing well on both the abutment excavation, which has now been excavated below the crest level abutments, and construction of the important saddle dams is also coming along well, with the clay core and filter material being placed in saddle dam No 2 and foundation preparation well underway for saddle dam No 1. Work on constructing these saddle dams is continuing. Three tower cranes will be erected later this month. These cranes will assist with the construction of the intake tower and with moving the formwork for the dam itself.
Of course, another very important and unique aspect of this project is that the rock for the dam will come from the site itself from an on-site crushing plant that has been established. The plant has crushed almost 300,000 tonnes of rock to date for use in the dam wall itself. Twin concrete batching plants will combine the rock with other components to make the concrete mix for the dam. Set-up of the batch plant is well underway and it is due to be commissioned this month.
Of course, this project is important because it helps provide a much higher level of water security for the ACT community. When completed, we will move from four gigalitres of storage capacity to 78 gigalitres. That is a significant expansion of our overall water supply catchment.
I know that many Canberrans will be interested to see this project underway. I am very pleased that ACTEW has now commissioned and the Chief Minister has opened the new Cotter Dam discovery trail so that individual Canberrans, families and school kids can go out and have a look at this project, understand the scale of what is being undertaken there and understand why it is important for securing water security for the ACT. I trust many Canberrans will take advantage of that opportunity.
MS PORTER: A supplementary, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, in relation to water security, can you advise the Assembly on the state of the territory’s water catchments following recent rainfall, and how does this compare to previous years?
MR CORBELL: Combined dam levels are now at 78.9 per cent. Of those, Corin is at 99.2 per cent, Bendora is at 99.5 per cent, the Cotter is at 100 per cent and Googong, our worst performing water catchment, is at 64.4 per cent. The last time we saw levels
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