Wellington Weir

The Wellington Weir was a proposed weir across the River Murray, located several kilometres south of the town of Wellington, South Australia, immediately upstream from where the river enters Lake Alexandrina. Proposed in 2006 at a cost of A$200 million, by 2009 the project was abandoned, in part due to flooding rains and community opposition. Calls for the project were reignited less than a year later and have been ongoing. The area that would have been impacted is subject to a Ramsar Agreement, as part of an international convention that aims to halt the loss of wetlands and conserve those that remain through wise use and management. The proposed weir is located on the traditional country of the Ngarrindjeri people.

The Wellington Weir project was announced in 2006 by the Rann Government of South Australia. It was reported that at the 2006 Melbourne Cup, Rann secured agreement to the project by Prime Minister John Howard. A proposed weir was suggested as an attempt to secure supply of potable water for Adelaide. The proposed weir would perform two roles: maintain a pool of water up-river that was sufficiently deep enough to allow continued use of the pumping station at Mannum during prolonged drought conditions; and reduce the flow of fresh water into Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert, the latter that evaporates over 1,000 gigalitres (810,000 acre⋅ft) of water per year. Much of the lower River Murray is controlled by a system of locks and weirs, including the Goolwa Barrages near the Murray Mouth, and Lock 1 at Blanchetown, 274 kilometres (170 mi) from the river mouth. The lowering of water levels in the lake system would severely impact on those who rely on the lakes and river for their livelihood and include irrigators, such as those in the Langhorne Creek wine region, farmers on the Narrung Peninsula and Point Sturt, and fisherpeople at Meningie and Clayton. Opponents of the weir contended that the planned weir would severely damage the environment of the lakes and Coorong, and that already endangered species in the lakes and Coorong could become extinct. Others argued that the proposed weir diverted attention from the real issue: the sustainability of the M

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