As champions of renewable energy, we seek a clean, healthy and sustainable future for all. Our water licence gives us stewardship of six Tasmanian water catchments, making us the largest freshwater manager in Australia. Environmental protection and research is a core part of our business.
We manage water bodies and waterways that provide essential habitat for various threatened species listed at federal and state levels. We work to minimise our impacts on these threatened species and to effectively manage the aquatic environment for future generations. Research into galaxiid fish species in Arthurs Lake and yingina / Great Lake has shed new light on the four threatened fish species that inhabit those waters.
From the construction of Australia’s first large-scale hydropower scheme in the early 1900s, we’ve been shaping communities. We manage the heritage values of our operational assets and heritage sites which tell an important story about the cultural values and industrial developments of their time. Valuing and conserving heritage includes respecting the places under our custodianship that are important to Aboriginal Tasmanians. We collaborate with these original owners to ensure their heritage is protected.
For many years, we’ve been working to find the best solutions to help Tasmania’s eels and lampreys navigate our dams. Their unique life cycles require them to migrate annually between marine and fresh waters. We work with the Inland Fisheries Service to assist migration at Trevallyn Dam on the South Esk River and at Meadowbank Dam on the Derwent River.
We are passionate about ensuring that Tasmania’s precious water resource remains healthy and available for future generations. That’s why we are systematically reviewing the state of our six major water catchments. Assessments are carried out in consultation with stakeholders and consider social, environmental and economic conditions and management practices. We commit to actions that achieve the greatest environmental and social benefits.
As Australia's largest generator of renewable energy, we make a major contribution to reducing the nation's carbon pollution. We are adapting to the impacts of climate change on the natural and built assets we manage. We are also working with leading research organisations, including the CSIRO and the Antarctic and Climate Ecosystems CRC, to reduce our vulnerability to potential changes in rainfall, temperature and wind caused by a changing climate.
We have been monitoring the Gordon River since the late 1990s as part of the approvals process for the Basslink interconnector. After the Basslink interconnector was commissioned in 2006 we took a number of steps to reduce riverbank erosion and ensure suitable conditions for fish and macroinvertebrates.
We are achieving promising results as we work to rehabilitate the Lagoon of Islands wetland in Tasmania’s central highlands. The unique ecosystem was flooded in 1964 to support irrigation, but is now being rehabilitated. We are seeing significant improvements in vegetation and the quality of water for downstream users, and we’re confident the lagoon is on the path to long-term recovery.
Finding the right level of water flow through Launceston’s Cataract Gorge is a balancing act. We’ve been working to understand the complex social, economic and ecological issues and the different views of our many stakeholders. We increased the water flow through the Gorge to 2.5 cumecs in 2011, and believe this is an appropriate balance between social, economic and environmental considerations.