Ord River

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Ord River
Ord River from a boat
Origin	Kimberley Plateau
Mouth	Timor Sea
Basin countries	Australia
Length	320 kilometres (199 mi)
Source elevation	531 metres (1,742 ft)[1]
Mouth elevation	sea level
Avg. discharge	3,870,000 ML/year[2]
Basin area	46,100 square kilometres (17,799 sq mi)[3]

The Ord River is a 320-kilometre-long river in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It was named in honour of Harry Ord, Governor of Western Australia from 1877 to 1880.

The headwaters of the Ord river are located below Mount Wells and initially flows east and around the edge of Purnululu National Park before heading North through Lake Argyle then passing west of Kununurra and discharging into the Indian Ocean in Cambridge Gulf. The river has 35 tributaries of which the five longest are Bow River, Nicholson River, Dunham River, Panton River and Negri River.

Contents 1 Ord River Irrigation Scheme 1.1 Power generation 1.2 Environmental effects of ORIS 1.3 Logistics of the ORIS 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Ord River Irrigation Scheme

The Ord River Irrigation Scheme (ORIS) was constructed on the river in 1963 and opened on June 30, 1972 by Prime Minister William McMahon. The scheme created Lake Argyle, which is Australia's largest dam, covering an area of 741 km².^[4]

ORIS provides water for irrigation to over 117 km² of farmland and there are plans to extend the scheme to allow irrigation of 440 km² in the future. The dam also generates power for the local community of Kununurra.

[edit] Power generation

The Ord River Dam Hydro Scheme is a privately funded, owned and operated power system in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. It consists of a new 36 MW hydro electric power station at Lake Argyle interconnected, by lengthy 132 kV transmission lines, with existing diesel fuelled power systems at the Argyle diamond mine and the Kununurra township. The scheme can currently only produce 1% of the power the Snowy Mountains Scheme produces.

[edit] Environmental effects of ORIS

Construction of ORIS has limited the flow of the river to the sea, and has created environmental problems. Water is no longer clearing the mouth of the river and so the Ord River is suffering a similar fate to the Murray. Salinity and erosion are also becoming an issue in the area, due to the rising of the water table in the area.

The ORIS provides irrigation to over 117 km² of farmland and there are plans to extend this to 440 km² in the future. Like so many other experiments in tropical agriculture the scheme initially failed because of difficulties growing crops and attack from pests. Today the irrigated areas successfully produce a variety of fruits and vegetables, with the most successful being sugar cane, bananas and melons.

[edit] Logistics of the ORIS

Sugar from the ORIS is trucked to Wyndham where it is exported to a Korean-owned food manufacturing plant in Surabaya, Indonesia. Fruit and vegetables are sold to domestic markets and are trucked to all capital cities. The ORIS is also home to the largest commercial Indian Sandalwood plantations in the world.

Contrary to some claims made by rail operators, the ORIS does not use the Katherine Intermodal Terminal to move its produce to market.

[edit] See also

• List of rivers of Australia
• List of watercourses in Western Australia

[edit] References

This article includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (September 2009)

Notes

[edit] External links

• The Seven Engineering Wonders - the Ord River Irrigation Scheme, 22 April, 2005
• NT Country Hour - 29/8/2002: Katherine - a future rail transport hub? - ABC.
• Tropical Forestry Services which harvests Indian Sandalwood in the ORIS.

Coordinates: 15°30′S 128°21′E / 15.5°S 128.35°E / -15.5; 128.35