00:00It's now 8 o'clock. The spillway has just begun to open up. Water has been coming
00:06out of the cone valves overnight, that big spray, but now the spillway slowly
00:11begins to open and the big flush for the next eight hours will take place down
00:17the snowy river from here at Jindabyne Dam Wall.
00:23Apparently it takes about seven hours for this water to reach from here
00:28downstream to the next town of Dalgetti. We're going to head there very soon to
00:33be there before the big flush to see how that might change the river environment.
00:41The water is now crescendo coming out of the dam and down the spillway. Over the
00:47last 10 minutes it's really built up. It looks like it's at its maximum flow now.
00:50All that water washing downstream. I'm going to go check out now a few places
00:56downstream to see how this water is changing the river environment.
01:00We're about three hours since the release at Jindabyne Dam. Starting to get wet here at
01:08Lappie Farm. Seven kilometres or so downstream. Water levels are increasing
01:13quickly as you can see here. Not quite a wall of water but certainly increasing at pace.
01:21Look at the water coming down the snowy... Brendan, we're at Lappie Farm. Your boots are
01:29already starting to get wet. We're standing on the edge of the snowy river. How good
01:34is it to see this flush? Yeah look, no it is. It's really good. We've been here for
01:3813 years. I think the flow started about 15 years ago. And in that time you know what
01:43we've seen with the river health is just amazing. It's incredible to see what the
01:47river would have been like back in the day before the dam you know. So it is, yeah it's
01:52amazing to see. It's great. On a normal day the river bank would be halfway across where
01:58the water now is? Pretty much. Pretty much out in that centre of the flow really. So normally
02:02you know it would be lucky to be 20 metres wide and now we're probably getting up to 800 metres
02:07wide so it's a lot more water. So why is the environmental flush so important here? You said you've seen the benefits of it. What are the benefits?
02:14Yeah look, we've really seen I think a lot of the sediment move out of the system. We're seeing a lot more wildlife. We're seeing a lot more platypus.
02:20You know we've got some great little colonies of platypus now in the river. A lot more fish life, a lot more bird life and again just that how clear the water is you know that since in the last 13 years.
02:31Where's the platypus go when the water's coming up this quick? Good question. Yeah look you know I mean I know they live in the banks.
02:38Sorry we can see the debris coming past it. The water level is, was released out of the dam what two hours ago? The big flush so it's now really starting to hit here yeah?
02:48Yeah it is I mean the same bridge is starting to get up. You can't move in a bit if you want.
02:52That's alright it's definitely coming up.
02:57So the water flush down the snowy river is at its peak about now. As you can see I'm standing right in the middle of the Dalgetti bridge.
03:05Erected in 1888. Lots of water coming downstream. You can hardly see the weir out there. The weir, the famous Dalgetti weir is just there.
03:15You can just see the little rapids where it's coming over the weir which is usually exposed.
03:20And if you swing around this side you get to see downstream and the snowy in full flow.
03:28Like it once did in the snow melt or once it used to do in the snow melt before the snowy hydro scheme of the 50s and 60s.
03:39Look at that all the debris going down there. The birds are singing. The water's flowing. The snowy river is alive.
04:09To leave the water's flowing.
04:12You jump in the snow. The snowy river is falling. The snowcomb. The snowy river is falling. The snowy river on the side and the snowy river alone.
04:21The snowy river stands across the rocks or the Je気 at the and the під PACMNius.
04:28The snowy river has protected us. It's relatively simply impressive.
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