Better news on Perth dam levels - 41 per cent capacity and rising

Water Minister Graham Jacobs today said he was relieved, that after poor early winter rainfall, dam levels had risen to the same capacity as this time last year with every chance Perth would enter summer with more water in the dams than most years this decade.

Dr Jacobs said daily water consumption had dropped dramatically since late June when on some days leading up to that point usage had been close to summer and early autumn levels.

"In recent days there has been significant run off from the catchments into the dams that has enabled us to catch up with last year's inflow," he said.

"Clearly, just prior to the start of winter, consumption at this level was unsustainable and the unnecessary use of sprinkler systems played a major part in the State Government's decision to introduce on July 1, a two-month trial total sprinkler ban in the southern half of Western Australia. 

"Since the beginning of the trial, daily consumption has been consistently at or below the average winter consumption of about 500 million litres. This has resulted from much-needed rainfall but also because the vast majority of people still using their sprinkler systems switched them off."

The Minister emphasised that it was extremely important in meeting the challenges thrown up by a drying climate that everyone be conscious of keeping winter consumption at rock bottom. Good water flows into the dams would then be invaluable for use in summer and autumn.

"It needs to be recognised that while we have the same amount of water in the dams as we did last year we have really only had two major downpours - one towards the end of June and the other in the past few days. Just over a week ago we still had 27 billion litres of water less in our dams than at the same time last year. That indicates that we need to continue to be conscious of our water consumption at all times," he said.

Dr Jacobs said that he was looking forward to a water summit on September 9 at which the Water Corporation, Department of Water, industry and community stakeholders would discuss the trial sprinkler ban which finishes at the end of August.

"The Government will definitely be considering whether or not the trial winter ban should become permanent in some parts of WA and we will be looking at the outcomes of the summit with a lot of interest," he said.

"Certainly, the 85 per cent of the community who have indicated they support the trial is a good starting point but there are a number of issues that need to be thoroughly worked through."

·      The dams overall are currently at about 41 per cent of overall capacity, holding more than 145 gigalitres (billion litres) of water. In the past six days on average about 5 gigalitres of water a day has flowed in from the catchments.  Last year the dams overall peaked at 152.5 gigalitres with only 2007 (170.8GL) and 2005 (175.1GL) at higher levels since 2000. However, these inflows are all significantly less than average inflows in previous decades.