THE Murray-Darling Basin is set to be flushed with thousands of gigalitres of water from the recent Queensland floods, the size of which means control of flows down the river system will be taken from NSW hands.
As a result of the inland tsunami working its way down the Darling, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority is preparing to take control of up to 1300 gigalitres of water set to be stored in NSW.
The weather bureau predicts 6125 gigalitres of water runoff has been generated by the floods - assuming there is no more rain - with a large proportion to flow into the Darling.
The NSW Office of Water now expects all four Menindee Lakes in western NSW - which are used to regulate flows to South Australia and Victoria - will be filled to their 1680-gigalitre capacity. Menindee's storage can be pushed to about 2000 gigalitres, four times the capacity of Sydney Harbour, in times of heavy flows. It is now expected the floodwater will push the lakes to that limit and potentially beyond.
The authority takes control of all water in Menindee Lakes above a 640-gigalitre trigger. Menindee now has 584 gigalitres from the January floods. The authority will return control of Menindee Lakes to NSW when the water drops below 480 gigalitres.
A spokesman for the authority confirmed yesterday that it expected to take control of the water in mid-April when the floodwater hit the lakes.
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