The Making of "The Nepean" - Day 9
First Shown: 24 January 2019 on YouTube
The Nepean Dam is our main objective today and after that we'll do a short detour to the Nepean, where it crosses beneath Avon Dam Road. We have to drive 74kms south to reach the dam so I've allocated 70 minutes for the journey including a coffee stop. I'm so generous to my crew.
On arival at the dam we park and set up for my daily intro, record that, then walk over to the dams' rim. It looks like a 'castle battlement'. Some time is spent setting up camera angles and videoing us walking around.
This system supplies water to Sydney, the Macarthur and Illawarra regions. Nepean Dam supplies Bargo, Thirlmere, Picton and The Oaks from the Water Filtration Plant on the western side of the dam. A tunnel between the Nepean and Avon dams allows the transfer of water to the Illawarra. Water is also released from the four dams into the Nepean river as environmental flows. They are the Avon, Cordeaux and Cataract rivers and dams. This water keeps all four rivers healthy. Although, in Day 1, the owner of Fullcircle Farm complained they had no water and called the Nepean River the Nepean Pools.
The Nepean Dam was built from 1925 to 1935 and was the last of the four dams constructed as part of the Upper Nepean System. I won't go into depth about all this as the Upper Nepean System was described on Day 8, during our previous adventure.
Here is an excerpt, on the Upper Nepean Scheme, from The Sydney Morning Herald, dated 2nd May, 1885, that explains why The Nepean Scheme was so important to Sydney:
The great sandbeds at Botany are assuming, with regard to their upper strata, the appearance of a sponge squeezed partially dry. As the level of the water sinks there are carried to the stream quantities of matter which it is impossible to prevent entering the pipes, and consumers will therefore do well to filter what they drink. The most serious feature in connection with the Botany system is that it cannot much longer stand the strain that is being put upon it. There is scarcely a probability that the citizens will have to undergo any serious inconvenience in consequence of their water supply running low; but that the present liberal abundance can be continued is impossible. It is reassuring to know that within a year, or it the farthest 18 months, a supply of water exceeding that of Botany will be flowing into the Crown-street reservoir, and relieving the overworked engines and the over drained reservoir, which have, and are still doing, such splendid service for us."
Leaving the dam we made a short detour to where the Nepean passes under Avon Dam Road. Our aim mainly, to examine the quantity of water released by the dam since the river had travelled only 1.3kms. There's nothing but a road bridge here and its surprising there is no recreational area attached. Like all the previous places we have visited this place is very beautiful and natural, something often hard to find, these days. I hope you enjoy it.
