Goulburn-Murray Water (GMW) has enjoyed a highly productive Winter Works program so far, with plenty more works planned ahead of the 2024–25 irrigation season on 15 August 2024.
GMW’s Winter Works program occurs between irrigation seasons. It provides the water corporation with a brief, three-month window of time to move water around to complete various maintenance activities such as weeding, desilting, and channel repairs.
GMW Infrastructure Delivery Services general manager Warren Jose said a mountain of work had already been completed during the 2024 program.
“We plan extensively for our Winter Works program, as it is a great opportunity for us to complete projects that would impact irrigators if undertaken during the irrigation season,” he said.
“We always have a long list of projects we want to get through during the winter, and we are pleased to have already completed many of them.”
In the first two months of the program alone, more than 20 km of channel have been de-silted, and more than 260 km of channel have been treated for aquatic weeds.
Additionally, ten pipelines have been repaired, hundreds of kilometres of channel access tracks have been treated, numerous road culverts have been repaired and replaced, and several kilometres of channels have been remodelled and had their banks strengthened with rock armouring.
Several major projects have already been completed. The Warrigal Creek Regulator has been repaired, which is an important aspect of regulating water flows in and out of the Goulburn River, and relining the interior of the regulator pipes was required to prevent leaks and improve sustainability outcomes. Similarly, the rail culverts that formed part of the Numurkah-Cobram Line and the Toolamba-Echuca Line needed replacing due to showing some minor cracking.
“There is still plenty more we want to get done before the start of the irrigation season,” Mr Jose said.
“In some places, there will still be changed traffic conditions and an increase in heavy vehicles on the road. We ask everyone to exercise extra care in these areas.”
