April Water

You may have seen the new Water Corporation’s new campaign to save water called “Wasting Bucketloads”. It stated that “More than 30 percent of household water use occurs in the garden, yet research showed one in five people don’t know their watering days”

Perth once received reliable rainfall throughout the year, but the shoulder seasons of autumn and spring are now routinely recording below average falls.

Our local water comes from the Mundaring Weir and our local history was dominated by the building of the weir and all that came afterwards.

From its opening in 1903 until 1996 the Weir regularly overflowed. Now we cannot afford to lose any water, so it is pumped between other dams to avoid wastage.

We thought we would focus on both the construction and later raising of the weir wall which was completed in 1951. In our collection we have a number of photographs of the building of the extra 32 feet or 9.8 metres, and also the living quarters of the workers. After WW11 the problem of shortage of skilled and unskilled workers was eased when European war refugees, or 'Displaced Persons', working under a two-year directed labour scheme were allocated to work on the dam. A total of seventy three refugees worked at Mundaring.

Click on image to read caption.

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  1901 site of No.1 Pumping Station and construction workers camp in background (2004.128)

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  Photo dated1949 with machinery in the foreground. (2006.16)0

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  Photo dated 1953. (2010.10.10)

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  Photo showing granite crusher on the south bank. (2010.37)

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  Photo showing overflow in 1963 (2013.17.3)

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  Photo showing both weir walls and crane in the background. (2015.8 2020)

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  Photo taken from the north side which shows the formwork before the concrete was poured. (2020.37.1)

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  1949 showing concrete batching plant. (2004.07)

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  1948-51 showing construction. (2002.228)