Bay closures commence at Murray Mouth barrages

SA Water has begun the process of closing sections of the 570 operational bays at the Goolwa Barrages, following their historic opening throughout the River Murray floods.

For the first time in years, all operational barrage bays at Goolwa, Mundoo, Boundary Creek, Ewe Island and Tauwitchere opened in December 2022 to help facilitate the safe flow of river floodwaters heading out to sea.

SA Water’s Senior Manager of River Murray Operations Garry Fyfe said with water levels now receding, work is underway to manually close the barrage bays over the next several weeks.

“Together with the Department for Environment and Water, we continue to actively monitor river flow rates and ocean tides multiple times each day, to guide how we manage the opening or closing of the barrage network as needed,” Garry said.

“This is important to stop seawater from flowing upstream into the Lower Lakes, while maximising the ability for river water to pass through to the Murray Mouth.

“With river levels receding, our crews have started reinstating the 1.5-tonne concrete stop logs at our small barrage networks in Boundary Creek and Mundoo that were removed ahead of the start of the flood event last year.

“As the water levels continue to drop over the coming weeks, we will look to close the remaining bays across our other three barrages in a staged manner that allows the safe passage of water flow down the river and out to sea, without the saline sea water coming the other way.

“Flooding down the river system has registered flows not seen for many decades, and we have seen thousands of locals and tourists visiting our Goolwa Barrage over recent months, looking to capture a glimpse of the rare event.

“We thank everyone for continuing to visit the barrages and take in this sight in a safe way.”

On behalf of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, SA Water operates the network of barrages, along with Locks One to Nine spread across South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales.

People can visit the Goolwa Barrage’s public access areas each day, with more information and opening hours available at sawater.com.au.

Contact:

Phone:

Email: