Shoalhaven City Council undertook a mechanical entrance intervention of Lake Tabourie yesterday culminating in the entrance being breached at 8am this morning.
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Council moved to open the lake to the ocean after the area received mild rainfall last week, bringing the lake’s water level to the required trigger level of 1.17m AHD at the Manly Hydraulics Laboratory gauge.
Director of planning and development, Tim Fletcher said council’s contractors started cutting the channel on Monday and removed the final plug at 8am this morning after high tide.
The operations were undertaken in accordance with council’s entrance management plan for the lake.
“This morning’s mechanical entrance intervention of Lake Tabourie was an extremely successful operation,” said Mr Fletcher.
“Water is now flowing freely to the ocean with the lake levels having already dropped by 5cm at 9.30am this morning.”
“Continuing moderate to heavy rainfall is usually desirable to have a long-lived opening, unfortunately there is no rainfall predicted in the coming days.”
Mr Fletcher said Council staff will continue to monitor the entrance and its behaviour over the coming weeks.
