Ross River Dam (Lake Ross)
Although initially built to mitigate wet season flooding, the Ross River Dam, located in Wulgurukaba country across the Ross River between Kelso and Mount Stuart, is one of the region's major water supplies.
When the original dam, constructed in 1971, was upgraded in the 1980s, the work saw the Flinders Highway and Mount Isa railway line, which previously ran north-south) to be shifted further east. A further upgrade in 2007 lifted the dam's capacity to 250,000 megalitres, enclosed inside an 8.67-kilometre embankment 34.4 metres high and a 750-square-kilometre catchment.
Runoff from the relatively limited catchment is supplemented by water released from the Burdekin Dam into the Burdekin and Haughton Rivers. Weirs control the volume of water entering each river. The Haughton pumping station supplies water via a low-pressure pipeline to the Ross River Dam.
Links to add:
Mount Stuart
Flinders Highway
Mount Isa railway line
Burdekin Dam
Haughton River
Haughton pumping station
