The Office of Water received 13 submissions from the public about proposed amendments to Snowy Hydro Limited’s licence and now await a determination from NSW Minister for Water, Phillip Costa.
“We’ve processed and analysed the submissions and all of the information is on its way to the minister; proposed licence variations plus changes proposed in the second round of submissions,” an Office of Water spokesperson said.
“[The result will be] at least an amendment of the licence when [Minister Costa] has made decisions on which parts of the variations go through and how they go through,” the spokesperson said.
The Office of Water spokesperson said modification of Snowy Hydro Limited’s water licence is now “entirely up to the minister”.
One new clause the Office of Water are proposing in Snowy Hydro Limited’s licence is 5.2, which states:
“For the avoidance of doubt, if a dam, tunnel, power station, aqueduct or other structure is decommissioned or removed, this ... does not affect the Licensee’s obligations”.
The Office of Water proposed this amendment to: “ensure that [Snowy Hydro Limited] cannot distance itself from its obligations to release water for Snowy River Increased Flows by decommissioning the assets that could be used to deliver the increased flows.”
Snowy Hydro Limited spokesperson Paul Johnson said the corporation accepted the proposed amendments to their licence. Snowy Hydro Limited’s formal submission states clause 5.2 is “counter intuitive and unnecessary” but they support it despite their concerns.
“Snowy Hydro is governed by the NSW State Government and we release water in accordance with our licence,” Mr Johnson said.
“We agreed with the proposed variations to the water licence that came out in the process of that [NSW Office of Water] review as they were released back in November,” he said.
Increased flows flush the Snowy River
Snowy River water levels below Lake Jindabyne peaked yesterday following a series of water releases mandated by the NSW Office of Water. On January 25, 870 megalitres were released and this week a further 870 megalitres helped flush the river.
NSW Water Commissioner David Harriss said the January release provided valuable scientific data about improving the Snowy River’s health. He said insufficient flows caused warmer surface water to form a layer over deep cool pools, with serious environmental consequences.
“In the Snowy River downstream of Jindabyne Dam, a flow of at least 850 megalitres a day is needed to break down thermal stratification in deep pools at this time of year,” Mr Harriss said.
“Thermal stratification can increase the potential for algal blooms and cause a lack of oxygen in the water, which is harmful to aquatic plants and animals. In some cases this can make deep pools unsuitable habitat for fish,” he said.
Between the January and February flushes, the Snowy River received 80 megalitres per day from Lake Jindabyne. Studies of January’s release have shown this to be less than 10 per cent of the flow required to disturb the layered water and blend its temperatures.
Snowy Hydro Limited control water flows from Lake Jindabyne under direction of the Office of Water, who reviewed Snowy Hydro Limited’s corporate water licence in 2009. This is a belated five-yearly review of the 75-year licence established in 2002.
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