Dams rise as rain tipped to return

Colleen Julian walks her dog Jed during a foggy morning in One Mile yesterday. Photo: Rob Williams MA0910WA

FOG made way for bright sunshine across Ipswich on Tuesday, but rain is expected to return today.

Tuesday’s temperature peaked at 31 degrees after an overnight low of 18.9, the lowest temperature so far this month.

Rain since the start of the year has delivered 18 months of water supply to south-east Queensland, and the Bureau of Meteorology has predicted thunderstorms on Wednesday easing to showers tomorrow and Friday.

Temperatures are expected to remain in the high 20s.

The combined levels of Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine dams has risen to more than 96 per cent, with strong inflows continuing into both Wivenhoe and Somerset.

Dam levels have risen more than 21 per cent since March 1; the equivalent of about 150,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Wivenhoe is not expected to reach 100 per cent capacity based on current inflows and the extra rainfall needed.

Somerset is at 100 per cent capacity and North Pine was at 99.6 per cent late yesterday.

The news came as the Queensland Government announced it would keep water restrictions to help delay building desalination plants.

Water conservation measures in place now set a daily target of 200 litres per person per day.

Premier Anna Bligh said the soon-to-be-finalised Seqwater Strategy, not recent rainfall, would determine future restrictions.

Ms Bligh said the strategy would look at whether the daily target should be relaxed to 230 litres a day, as earlier planned, or kept at 200 litres.

“The reason why we are now reconsidering that is whether or not that would influence the timing of new water sources like desalination plants,” she said.

Ms Bligh said the initial plan had been to build desalination plants between 2016 and 2020, and land would be put aside at Lytton, Mooloolaba and Bribie Island so a future government could build the infrastructure in the 2020s.

She said there was no room for complacency despite high dam levels, and the long-term water strategy would be released soon.

“We have learned over the past few years how quickly, when we don’t get rain, those supplies can whittle away,” Ms Bligh said.

“We’re looking at how far off we can delay (desalination plants), but we will not be delaying putting the land aside.”

Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace said more than 1300km of the state’s roads had been damaged by the floods.

“Only when water recedes will we see the full extent of the damage,” Mr Wallace said.