Hydro-Wilderness

An ongoing photographic project examining the aesthetic and environmental implications of water management and hydro-electric infrastructures in Australia. All images by Sydney based artist, Bryden Williams

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Tasmania’s Energy Scandal

Tasmania has provided yet another example of what happens when you let the lunatics run the asylum for too long. This time, it has run out of electricity to the point of needing 200 temporary diese…

An article detailing evidence that supports the view of an inept management as a reason for the current issues facing Tasmania’s Hydro-plants that affect electricity availability, ecological balance and governmental and economic stability and of course the social and cultural wellbeing throughout the island state.

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Images taken in the storm drain complex of Inner West Sydney, near the Cook’s River. 

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Lake Burragorang is pictured in the first image, taken from Mt. Mouin in the Blue Mountains.

Beneath is the view from an area overlooking the uppermost reaches of the lake. Lake Burragorang is impounded by Warragamba dam and forms the catchment area for Sydney’s water supply.

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Water flows eastwards along the Cox’s river. This water responds to its environment, rising and lapsing in moments of drought and rainfall, all the while attempting to sustain the ecosystem around it. The Cox’s river run begins in Ben Bullen, flowing across the central tablelands through Megalong Valley, eastwards towards the Hawkesbury/Nepean catchment eventually becoming impounded by Warragamba Dam in Lake Burragorang – Sydney’s water supply. The water itself inhabits many places and from each place it carries a trace of sediment, as it navigates the natural and man-made environments and altered landscapes, such as Lake Lyell and Lake Wallace, that are constructed to fulfil purposes set by farmers, mining companies, power stations and recreational and civic demands.

Over the time-span of 20 years I have been humbled by this rivers existence. Since 1994 my parents have lived on an acreage in Megalong Valley where the Cox’s river underscores the lower section of their bottom paddock. Here the river is traversed by two crossings, one a relatively new concrete causeway built for private use and the other an older steel bridge that provides access for the water board to the river through our property. Interestingly, there is also an above-ground steel pipeline crossing the river beside the steel bridge. This is the Oberon to Medlow bath pipeline, constructed to send drinking water from the Fish river up to Greaves catchment in Medlow Bath.

The pipe, bridge and river junction beneath my parent’s property interest me. I often consider the fact that the water courses naturally in the Cox’s river while the Fish river’s waters are piped artificially over the top of the river through the steel pipeline. Although the pipeline contributes to the upper Blue Mountains water supply, it is only pumped as replenishment for the larger reservoir, so it operates more as a back up. During the dry, hot summer months that are typical of this region the Cox’s flow is usually very low, often muddy and stagnant with rampant algal blooms. At this time, the pipeline may be ebbing with fresh cool water from the Fish River. This is an ironic factor of the presence of these two different passageways of water.

Mankind’s need for electricity and water comes at a detriment to rivers like the Cox’s, where a future equilibrium for both man and nature seems an almost cryptic proposition, especially considering that the river is bookended by man-made dams. All needs considered, the cycle of nature continues. The ancient river prevails, albeit in a diminished form, abated by the infrastructures of modern society. 

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Words on the Cox's River.

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Rocky Valley Pondage, Victoria. 

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An anchor point fitted to a boulder overlooking Mermaids Pool; a local swimming hole located downstream from the hydro dams of the Kiewa River.

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The blackened concrete verticals and spillway of Junction Dam, in the Bogong National Park, Victoria.

This dam is used to collect the headwaters from McKay and Bogong hydropower stations from the respective tributaries of East Kiewa and Rocky Valley Rivers, joining at a confluence just upstream from the dam. It also regulates the water for another downstream station and acts to dampen the effect of fluctuating water purging downstream into the Kiewa River.

The effect of this dam is dramatic, on an environmental level and also aesthetically. It’s interconnected chambers, pictured in second image, each have unique acoustic properties. Each day the runoff makes a new sound as it reverberates in the chambers within the dam wall.

The Lake Guy foot trail leads around the upstream Lake Guy and also through the dam, from one end, through the chambers and underneath the spillway out to the far end.

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A Jindabyne Dam abstract.

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A spillover chute near Kiewa West Power Station in Victoria’s Bogong National Park. 

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Kiewa West Power Station at dusk. In the Bogong National Park, Victoria.

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The mossy slopes of Junction Dam, Victoria.

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Inside the guts of Junction Dam, Victoria.

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This is a small man-made island that sits within the confines of Lake Guy, in Victoria’s Bogong National Park. Lurking awkwardly from the often brown murky waters, it was created some time after the lake was flooded in 1944 for a series of power stations in the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme. It’s purpose was to accommodate for the local ducks but there aren’t any traces of ducks when I visited the site in February 2015. There was a tree growing from the top of this hill but it has recently been lopped, leaving nothing but tall grass and blackberry bushes.

The island is routinely cut off from the nearby banks by the fluctuating shoreline of the Lake, a result of the hydropower activity in the surrounding area. 

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The stars glow in the night sky, heeded by the rough concrete surface of a dam spillway.

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Overlooking the spillway of Junction Dam at night. 

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The mossy slopes of Junction Dam in Victoria, photographed at night.

Forming part of the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme, the dam is situated at the head of Lake Guy, itself a major pondage for Victoria’s largest Hydro scheme. The dam is overlooked by Bogong Village which was a workers village founded back when construction on Junction Dam and other surrounding infrastructure commenced in the early 40′s.

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Granite, concrete and steel, refusing to coalesce in a bid to stand rigid against the body of water beneath