History
On the 1 July 2003, cotton farmers reliant on the dam for irrigation had their water allocation cut by 75%. In November 2006, the dam had reached its lowest level ever—just 14% of total capacity. Over that summer low inflows and high evaporation rates had dropped levels to 12%.
On 18 January 2008 at around 12 noon, the dam overflowed (photo) for the first time in 17 years, due to heavy local rain. On 20 January 2008, around 48 hours later the water level was about 3.5 m over the spillway level (~156% full capacity). The water level peaked at about 4.5 m on 22 January 2008. A week before this rain event, the level saw the lake holding only 29% of full capacity. Downstream 2700 residents had to be evacuated due to flooding.
SunWater, the managing organisation for the dam, is undertaking a dam spillway capacity upgrade program to ensure the highest level of safety for our dams is maintained. The spillway will be upgraded in the longer term. In 2010 there was higher floods still. The Courier Mail (31 December 2010) said "The Fairbairn Dam is holding back an immense body of water - it's now at 175 per cent capacity with 5.6m of water pouring over the spillway, well beyond the 4.4m recorded during the 2008 flood."
Read more about this topic: Fairbairn Dam
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the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
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—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
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—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)