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A. Khan

SunWater manages its portfolio of 29 major dams through 6 business centres each responsible for the Dam Safety Program for the dams under its management control.

The effectiveness of responses during an emergency depends on the amount of planning and training performed. Management must show its support for dam safety programs and the importance of emergency planning.

If management is not interested in community protection and in minimising property loss, little can be done to promote dam safety. It is therefore management’s responsibility to see that a program is instituted and that it is frequently reviewed and updated.

The input and support of all communities must be obtained to ensure an effective program. The emergency response plan should be developed locally and should be comprehensive enough to deal with all types of emergencies specific to that site.

SunWater is a responsible dam owner and has recently upgraded all its emergency action plans in consultation with emergency services of Queensland. This paper details the basic steps to handle emergencies of water infrastructure. These emergencies include inflow floods, rapid drawdown, earthquake, sunny day failure, changes in reservoir water quality and terrorist attacks including hoax.

This paper is intended to assist small dam owners that do not have dam safety programs in place. It is not intended as an all inclusive safety program but rather a provision of guidelines for planning for emergencies.

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2006 Papers

2006 – Emergency Action Planning for SunWater Dams
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A. Khan

SunWater manages its portfolio of 29 major dams through 6 business centres each responsible for the Dam Safety Program for the dams under its management control.

The effectiveness of responses during an emergency depends on the amount of planning and training performed. Management must show its support for dam safety programs and the importance of emergency planning.

If management is not interested in community protection and in minimising property loss, little can be done to promote dam safety. It is therefore management’s responsibility to see that a program is instituted and that it is frequently reviewed and updated.

The input and support of all communities must be obtained to ensure an effective program. The emergency response plan should be developed locally and should be comprehensive enough to deal with all types of emergencies specific to that site.

SunWater is a responsible dam owner and has recently upgraded all its emergency action plans in consultation with emergency services of Queensland. This paper details the basic steps to handle emergencies of water infrastructure. These emergencies include inflow floods, rapid drawdown, earthquake, sunny day failure, changes in reservoir water quality and terrorist attacks including hoax.

This paper is intended to assist small dam owners that do not have dam safety programs in place. It is not intended as an all inclusive safety program but rather a provision of guidelines for planning for emergencies.
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2008 Papers

2008 – Design considerations for upgrading SunWater’s dams for acceptable flood capacity
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Brendan Trebilco

Abstract: A number of SunWater’s dams are in the process of being upgraded to the acceptable flood capacity (AFC) to ensure the highest level of safety. The Fred Haigh Dam upgrade was completed in September 2006 and the Bjelke Petersen Dam upgrade was completed in October 2007. Borumba Dam is the latest upgrade being undertaken with construction commencing in April 2008 and is expected to be completed by December 2008. Each dam underwent a comprehensive risk assessment to identify and evaluate all risks with respect to the ANCOLD tolerability limits to ensure risks satisfied ALARP. The assessment identified the most cost effective upgrade solutions for detailed design.

The upgrade at Fred Haigh, Bjelke Petersen and Borumba Dams will enable them to pass an extreme flood equivalent to 50% of the Acceptable Flood Capacity (AFC). This is Stage 1 of a two stage upgrade to ultimately achieve 100% of the ANCOLD “Fallback” AFC which is the standard SunWater has adopted for its major dams. SunWater has prioritised spillway capacity upgrades to achieve a minimum dam portfolio standard of passing 50% Acceptable Flood Capacity inflow by 2015 and full Acceptable Flood Capacity inflow by 2025.

The most economic Stage 1 upgrade option for Fred Haigh, Bjelke Petersen and Borumba Dams was to maintain the existing spillway width and to raise the dam crest with a concrete parapet wall. For the Bjelke Petersen and Borumba Dams the spillway training wall heights were raised to allow for increased flow though the spillway. From the hydraulic model studies and flood routing a height of each different dam crest wall was obtained.

This paper will describe the different methods and considerations used for upgrading Fred Haigh, Bjelke Petersen and Borumba Dams to the 50% AFC.

Keywords: dam safety, spillway, Fred Haigh Dam, Bjelke Petersen Dam, Borumba Dam, SunWater, Queensland.
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2008 Papers

2008 – Fairbairn Dam – performance during flood of record
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Rob Ayre, Terry Malone

Abstract: Fairbairn Dam with a storage capacity of 1,301,100 ML is the second largest dam in Queensland in terms of water supply capacity. The dam forms the head works of the Nogoa – Mackenzie Water Supply Scheme operated by SunWater in Central Queensland. Completed in 1972, it consists of a zoned earth-fill embankment 49 m high and 823 m in length. The dam has an un-gated ogee spillway crest that is 4.2 m high and 165 m long, with an original design capacity of 15,600 m3/s.

In January 2008, Central Queensland experienced significant flood producing rains which were generated from low pressure systems associated with monsoonal activity across northern Australia. Rainfall totals over the 16,000 km2 catchment area of Fairbairn Dam varied in depth from around 200 mm to nearly 700 mm during a five day period to 20 January 2008. This resulted in the largest outflow from the dam since its construction and the first spill event from the dam since April 1990. While the dam had a significant mitigating impact, there was still major flooding of the township of Emerald, some 19 kilometres downstream.

This paper describes the performance of the dam during the event. Details of the data collected during and after the event, including assessments of spillway performance, dam safety surveillance and the implementation of the Emergency Action Plan will be presented. In particular, the paper focuses on the flood response concerning downstream communities and the resultant flood effects on Emerald and major infrastructure located in the downstream flood plain. It highlights the need for dam owners to have the capability of forecasting inflows and outflows to their structures and how this information contributes to the overall flood response system.

Keywords: dam safety, spillway, flooding, Fairbairn Dam, Emerald, SunWater, Queensland.
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2008 Papers

2008 – Design Rainfall Issues in South East Queensland
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Terry Malone

Abstract: Recent studies in SE Queensland for existing and proposed dams and other flood studies have highlighted a number of issues with respect to the design event approach in deriving and applying design rainfalls to calibrated runoff routing models.

The estimation of design rainfall depths for frequent to large events is usually done by the intensity-frequent-durations (IFD) methods outlined in Australian Rainfall and Runoff (AR&R) or CRC-Forge.

The design temporal patterns applied to these rainfall depths are critical in the estimation of design floods as are the adopted loss rates.

This paper describes the methods used to derive the design rainfall and some of the issues which arose in their application in the design event approach to assessing design floods. It uses examples at several locations in studies undertaken by SunWater and refers to similar issues encountered in other studies.

Implications for flood studies are outlined.

Keywords: design rainfall, design floods, CRC-FORGE, IFD, temporal patterns, SunWater, Queensland.
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2009 Papers

2009 – Ross River Dam Upgrade – Flood Commissioning Experience
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Rob Ayre, Simone Gillespie, Peter Richardson, Mark Harvey

In November 2007, NQWater (now Townsville City Council) completed the upgrade of Ross River Dam near Townsville. This upgrade included the installation of a Program Logic Control (PLC) operated radial gate structure in the existing spillway. The purpose of the upgrade was threefold; to meet current design standards regarding dam safety and flood capacity; increase the town water supply to Townsville and Thuringowa; and to maintain the flood mitigation benefit of the dam during flood events in the Ross River catchment.

The designers of the dam upgrade completed a risk assessment at the commencement of the design phase and concluded that a PLC operated gated dam posed less risk than an approach that relied purely on dam operators. This is seen as the “new way forward” in gate operated dams by many designers. The regulator of dam safety in Queensland has indicated a preference for an operator to remain on site full time whilst the PLC system is ‘proved’. As a consequence a flood operations team was engaged to monitor the dam during times of flood through the commissioning period of the upgrade.

This paper discusses the lessons learnt from the experiences of the Ross River Dam during its first few flood events and issues associated with the adopted design approach.

Keywords: Dam Safety, Gated Spillway, Flood Operations, Ross River Dam, NQWater, Townsville City Council, SunWater, Queensland.
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2010 Papers

2010 – Bowen River Weir Fishway – Design and Construction
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David Scriven, Errol Beitz, Aaron Elphinstone

The Bowen River Weir is located at AMTD 94.4 km on the Bowen River, some 25 km south of Collinsville in North Queensland. The weir is part of the Bowen/Broken Rivers Water Supply Scheme and it provides a pumping pool for pipelines serving two nearby coal mining developments and a power station, and also acts as a regulator for riparian water users downstream until it meets the Burdekin River.
The weir was constructed in 1982 and incorporated a fishway towards the southern (left) bank, the design of which was based on the old “pool and weir” fish ladder type layout, typical of that era, with 48 separate cells containing partial vertical slots and baffles. This design has since been found to be ineffective for Australian native fish. In addition it was often out of service due to cells becoming filled with river sediment and debris. For these reasons it was decommissioned and made safe in late 2008 on the condition that a new fishway be constructed.
In late 2008 agreement was reached with Fisheries Queensland to install a “fish lock” type fishway at the site. This type of fishway has in recent years proved to be reliable and effective (eg. successful fish locks at Neville Hewitt and Claude Wharton Weirs). The preliminary and then final design was undertaken by SunWater (Infrastructure Development) between September 2008 and March 2009. The construction was undertaken by SunWater direct management, commencing in July 2009 and completed in late 2010.

Bowen River Weir Fishway – Design and Construction
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