Rodney Campbell's Blog

This morning we went down to take a look at the ord river dam, the dam lookout and the hydro station at the bottom.

The Ord River Dam was completed in 1972 with the work carried out over three dry seasons. The Dam was designed to never overflow at the main embankment with a 2.2 kilometres overflow cut made thorough solid rock between two hills, 8 kilometres from the Dam wall.

Ord River Dam Wall

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 32 mm, 1/80 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

When the Ord River Dam was completed it became the largest capacity Dam in Australia with a volume of 5641 gigilitres (equivalent to 11.2 Sydney Harbours) The flow from both Dams was regulated to maintain a stable level in Lake Kununurra, which enabled the water to be diverted by gravity to the Ivanhoe Plain. The permanent water supply to Lake Kununurra also enabled the development for irrigated land on the adjacent Packsaddle Plain.

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/200 sec at f/8, ISO 100

In the early 1990’s, it was decided that a hydroelectric power station would be built at the base of the Main Ord Dam. In order to be able to guarantee a reliable supply of energy a higher water level was needed to be maintained in the lake. Engineers determined that by building a weir across the spillway they could safely raise the storage by six metres. This almost doubled the volume to 10,763 gigalitres (increasing the capacity to 21 Sydney Harbours).

Ord River Hydro

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 32 mm, 1/50 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Feathers

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 98 mm, 1/125 sec at f/8, ISO 100

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