No water restrictions on the horizon for South West Victoria

Wannon Water has released its Annual Water Outlook for 2025 which confirms there are no water restrictions on the horizon for its customers.

While Bureau of Meteorology climate data shows that some parts of South West Victoria have faced their driest 12 months on record, the report outlines how Wannon Water is well prepared to meet demands for urban water.

Managing Director Andrew Jeffers said the corporation kept a close eye on its systems to ensure that it can continue to maintain supplies to its 45,000 customers.

“We’re lucky to have such a diverse range of water sources, including surface water catchments, and deep geothermal and shallow groundwater aquifers serving our 34 towns and communities,” Mr Jeffers said.

The Otway system is the largest of Wannon Water’s systems, supplying water to more than 26,000 customers including Warrnambool, Koroit, Allansford, Camperdown, Terang, Mortlake, Lismore, Derrinallum and Simpson. It sources water from rivers and streams in the Otway Ranges, with multiple balancing storages that increase the security of supply. It’s also supplemented through the Warrnambool Roof Water Harvesting System and several bores.

Mr Jeffers said there had been no restrictions for Otway customers since mandatory statewide restrictions were in place in the early 1980s. During this time, the system was still performing with a consistent and secure supply. Wannon Water also has an emergency bore located near Curdievale which can be used under drought conditions when needed.

The corporation’s second largest system in the Grampians has many different supply options providing a high level of security. This system sources water from streams and bores in the Grampians National Park for the towns of Hamilton, Dunkeld, Tarrington and Cavendish. The water is transferred and stored in three major reservoirs north of Hamilton before being treated.

The system also includes a pump station that harvests water from Rocklands Reservoir to supply Balmoral. A 52-kilometre-long pipeline linking Rocklands to Hamilton was commissioned following the Millenium Drought in 2010, providing additional back-up.

“We’ve never actually needed to use the pipeline over the past 14 years, but we’ve maintained it as a drought-proofing measure,” Mr Jeffers said.

“As the dry conditions have had an impact on stream flows in the Grampians catchment, our storage levels in the three reservoirs have dropped over the past 12 months from being close to capacity to now sitting at 69 per cent full.

“We’ve been closely monitoring this system to understand what water resource requirements we’ll need over summer and into 2025. We now expect to bring the pipe online in January, sourcing water from Rocklands to improve our storage levels over summer.”

Glenthompson customers are supplied separately, with water harvested from two farmland catchments and stored it in the Glenthompson Reservoir. This is supplemented through a pipeline from Willaura supplied by Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water.

“We’ve been monitoring the storage levels within the reservoir on a weekly basis since August and have now transferred some additional water from the town’s railway reservoir,” Mr Jeffers said. “This means we should be able to avoid restrictions in the town if the dry conditions continue.”

Wannon Water also has 10 groundwater supply systems which were secure through the Millennium Drought and are expected to remain so in the future. Water restrictions are not normally part of the management of these systems.

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