Goulburn Broken CMA environmental water and wetlands manager Simon Casanelia said the water release was referred to as a winter fresh.
“A fresh is a flow that increases the height of the river for a short period of time,” he said.
“This winter fresh will help maintain the health and functioning of the Goulburn River by depositing seed-rich sediment on the banks which helps stabilising plants to grow, and moving sediments from the riverbed to maintain habitat for water bugs and native fish.”
The flows also increase the habitat available for native fish, platypus and water bugs by inundating connected anabranches and wetlands.
The fresh is planned to coincide with natural high flows where possible but will otherwise peak in late July at up to 9500Ml/day (a river height of 5.6m at Shepparton) before slowly dropping back to approximately 1000Ml/day (a river height of 2.7m at Shepparton) in early August.
The planned flows are well below the minor flood level of 9.5m at Shepparton.
Mr Casanelia said the fresh aimed to utilise natural tributary inflows as much as possible, as they were rich in sediment and seed, instead of releases predominately from Lake Eildon.
“If there is heavy rain, environmental flow releases may be reduced or stopped,” he said.
“Releases of water for the environment are designed to mimic the natural flows that would have occurred before the river was dammed and regulated, although they are often much smaller than the flows that would have occurred naturally.”
Timing of the environmental flows also takes into consideration delivery orders by irrigators and other water users and feedback from the community via the Goulburn Broken CMA’s environmental water advisory groups.
