EstuaryWatch Data Portal

Dear Community members

With the recent partial opening on July 15th, Council has been monitoring Painkalac Creek water levels. With a saturated catchment any inflows over the past 2 weeks have resulted in water level rise. The weekends 7mm of rain in the catchment saw river levels rise to 1.9 metres which results in minor drain flooding along roadsides in specific low lying areas. The reservoir is currently full and is therefore not able to hold back any upstream inflows. The sand berm at the river mouth is blocking the river flows and is approximately 0.65metres above the estuary water levels.

With a further rainfall forecast of 20mm due and without removal of the sand berm, it is likely water levels will rise enough to cause flooding to houses. Council is therefore proposing to open the estuary mouth today with the support of CCMA, Barwon Water and DELWP.

Sharna Whitehead
Surf Coast Shire Council

PS from Rod Brooks: The estuary had naturally closed on 13 August but naturally reopened on 14 August following rainfall and then naturally closed on 11 September 2022

Painkalac Creek fringing vegetation type maps from 2017

 These maps have been made by one of EstuaryWatch team Evy Gomm using open source data collected by Sinclair and Kohout 2018

The online data source is: https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/index-of-estuarine-condition-estuarine-fringing-vegetation

The report where the data collection methods are described is attached: Sinclair, S.J. and Kohout, M. (2018). Assessment of fringing vegetation for the index of estuary condition. Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research Technical Report Series No. 290. Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Heidelberg, Victoria.

Dear Community members

With the recent wet weather, Council has been monitoring Painkalac Creek water levels. River levels have risen to 1.89 metres which results in minor drain flooding along roadsides in specific low lying areas. The reservoir is currently full and is therefore not able to hold back any upstream inflows. The sand berm at the river mouth is blocking the river flows and is approximately 0.65 metres above the estuary water levels.

With a further significant rainfall event due and without removal of the sand berm, it is likely water levels will rise enough to cause flooding to houses. Council is therefore proposing to open the estuary mouth today with the support of CCMA, Barwon Water and DELWP.

Sharna Whiteheasd
Coordinator Community Emergency Management
Surf Coast Shire Council

P.S. the opening was only partial and closed over in a few days.

Council digger artificially opening estuary mouth

Surf Coast Shire has artificially opened the estuary around 20th June. Water level (m AHD) at the bridge is still high at just on 2m AHD and Coastal Court and Butlers Bend monitoring sites are still underwater.

High tides 1.8m on Saturday and Sunday saw the sea go over the berm on both days. Photos are from Sunday 17th June at 2.40pm. Very windy day and a big sea following high rainfall. 1.9m AHD at the Bridge

High tide 1.8m Monday 21st

1.8m high tides again on Sunday 20th and Monday 21st May. Sea water over the berm both days. Water level at the Bridge was 1.45m

The high 1.8m tide at 2.08pm broke over the berm and sea water entered the estuary. Not a lot of sea water but it looked like it may have happened a few times this week as there was quite a lot of seaweed over the berm. Estuary height was 1.4m

High tide of 1.6m today saw the sea water break the berm. Not very much sea water into the estuary but higher tides are expected for the rest of the week. The estuary water level was 1.3m