WATER CONSERVATION, IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE IN N.S.W. 235 



works here referred to or contemplated would have much less 

 effect on the flow of the river than the works which have been 

 constructed or are in progress in Victoria. 



First projects for utilising the Murrumbidgee. — The question of 

 utilising the waters of the Murrumbidgee was also taken up by 

 the present writer in 1885. The circumstances connected with 

 the investigation differed from those in the case of the river 

 Murray, as no definite suggestion or proposal had previously been 

 put forward in regard to the latter, while in the case of the 

 Murrumbidgee there was a feeling in favour of utilising Lake 

 Tirana for storage purposes and of taking a canal through the 

 Brookong Plain. It was also desirable to find a place at which a 

 weir could be used to divert water on to the north side of the river 

 as well as to the south side. The place which was selected as the 

 best site for a weir to meet the conditions then in view was at 

 Pomingalarna, about six miles downstream from Wagga Wagga. 

 Some years afterwards the surveys were sanctioned, and these 

 showed that a canal could not enter Brookong Plain without pass- 

 ing through a ridge in which the depth of cutting would have 

 reached seventy feet. The result was that the scheme was 

 abandoned on account of the heavy outlay which it would have 

 involved. 



The Murrumbidgee northern canal project and Lake Coolacum- 

 pama. — The result of the surveys from Pomingalarna on the north 

 side of the Murrumbidgee was also disappointing. The levels 

 showed that a canal could be taken from that place to the great 

 natural reservoir site at Lake Coolacumpama, which is about five 

 miles northward from Narandera, and that this reservoir could be 

 used to store a supply of water in winter which would maintain a 

 large flow in summer, through the great plains extending to Oxley. 

 But the cost of conveying the water to Lake Coolacumpama was 

 so heavy that the scheme could not be recommended under exist- 

 ing circumstances. Before leaving this subject, it may be men- 

 tioned that Colonel Home pronounced Lake Coolacumpama to be 

 the finest natural reservoir for irrigation that he had ever seen. 



