Lake Eildon

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Lake Eildon
A view of the lake showing where the water level used to be less than 15 years ago
Location	Southern Victoria
Coordinates	37.214° S 145.931° ECoordinates: 37.214° S 145.931° E
Lake type	Reservoir
Primary inflows	Goulburn River
Primary outflows	Goulburn River
Basin countries	Australia
Max. length	983 metres
Surface area	13,832 ha
Average depth	79 metres
Water volume	3,334,158 ML

Lake Eildon is the impoundment created by Eildon Weir on the Goulburn River in southern Victoria, Australia. At 3,334,158 ML when full, it contains six times as much water as Sydney Harbour and is the second largest water storage in Victoria. It is located at the town of Eildon, within Lake Eildon National Park.

1 Construction
2 Drought
3 Gallery
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Construction

The lake was created in several stages. The first dam was constructed between 1915 and 1929, creating what was then known as Sugarloaf Reservoir. The storage was enlarged to 377,000 ML in 1935, and then enlarged almost tenfold between 1951 and 1955. On average, 91% of the water from Lake Eildon goes to the Goulburn Weir and the Waranga Basin before it flows to irrigators in the Goulburn Valley system.

[edit] Drought

In recent years, Lake Eildon has rarely filled, and the once-thriving holiday destinations around the lake have been unable to attract visitors, leading to considerable economic hardship. Although water is in great demand for agriculture, careful regulation has kept outflows fairly static. The drop in storage levels is attributed to long-term climate change, part of the worldwide global warming trend^{[citation needed]}. As of May 8, 2007, Lake Eildon had dropped to an all-time low of 5.3% capacity.[1]

In June of 2007, the Victoria Government announced that Lake Eildon would be connected to Melbourne's metropolitan water supply via a pipeline from the Goulburn River.

The nearby town of Bonnie Doon was the location for the holiday scenes in the movie, The Castle.