Crotty Dam, Tasmania
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Crotty Dam also known earlier as the King River Dam is an 80metre high concrete faced rock and gravel fill dam in Tasmania.
It is one of two dams that contain Lake Burbury, on the West Coast. It captures the high rainfall in the catchment of the King River and is located in the upper portions of the King River gorge where the river breaks west through the West Coast Range. Crotty Dam and Lake Burbury have been identified as Indicative places on the Register of the National Estate [1]
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[edit] History
Constructed in the 1980s following the abandonment of the Gordon-below-Franklin power development scheme (The Franklin Dam) of Hydro Tasmania.
Named after the ghost town site of Crotty which was submerged by the waters of Lake Burbury.
In the 1910s the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company had investigated and surveyed a site very close to this dam for a proposed hydro electric scheme. Charles Whitham also wrote of the inevitablity of the dam in 1927 and even proposed a name for the reservoir created - Lake Dorothy.
[edit] Spillway
A unique feature of the Dam is its spillway. It is located on the crest and downstream face of the embankment. This had never been successfully attempted before the dams construction due to problems in making allowance for embankment settlements.
In the case of Crotty, because the embankment was partly composed of well graded gravels - due to a high modulus of deformation, consequently relatively smaller embankment settlements occurring.
The spillway designers Sergio Giudici (the chief engineer on the Gordon Dam) and others received various accolades within the engineering community because it was the first known to provide for articulation of the spillway structure so that movements in its foundations could occur without damage to the overlying structure.[citation needed]
[edit] Power station
The water from Lake Burbury is conveyed through a 7km long unlined tunnel to the John Butters Power Station which is close to the confluence of the King River with the Queen River
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Rae, Lou. The Abt Railway and Railways of the Lyell region. Sandy Bay: Lou Rae. ISBN 0-9592098-7-5.
- Whitham, Charles. Western Tasmania - A land of riches and beauty, Reprint 2003, Queenstown: Municipality of Queenstown.
- 2003 edition - Queenstown: Municipality of Queenstown.
- 1949 edition - Hobart: Davies Brothers. OCLC 48825404; ASIN B000FMPZ80
- 1924 edition - Queenstown: Mount Lyell Tourist Association. OCLC 35070001; ASIN B0008BM4XC
