River Torrens is drained of water

AN angry Premier Mike Rann says it would be "stupid" to refill the drained Torrens Lake with water from Adelaide's reservoirs.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Rann demanded answers as to how the lake could lose millions of water overnight.

"My first reaction was anger but I'm not here to blame the council, what I want to know is what went wrong and what we're going to do about it in the future," he said.

"Obviously it couldn't have come at a worse time.

"One thing we won't be doing is taking water out of the reservoir, that would be just stupid.''

Lord Mayor Michael Harbison today admitted that the accidental draining of Torrens Lake overnight is an appalling embarrassment - but says it's unlikely to be refilled without rain.

The once-scenic lake is today a stinking mud hole after it was drained of millions of litres of water overnight when an electrical fault opened the weir gates.

Adelaide City Council staff were forced to manually wind the weir shut but levels had already dropped by more than two metres and the water was rushing into the sea.

Despite a range of festivals over the coming months including the The Fringe, Womadelaide and the Clipsal 500 Lord Mayor Michael Harbison says Adelaide may have to put up with the mudflats over its peak tourism period.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Adelaide
• Mike
• Rann
• Michael
• Harbison
• River
• Torrens
• dry
• drained
• of
• water
• weir
• leak

[wildchild9508]

that river and all the other torrens places,/landmarks, schools,roads,mountain, etc is named after my great great great great great great grandfather...seriously!

[AdelaideChannel]

And Adelaide is named after my Youtube account...seriously!

[Rowdyeh]

Time for a clean up of the Torrens I reckon! Got to laugh at the stupidity and it's not going to be filled in time for the Fringe! Oh Dear! Good one, Harbison!

[AdelaideChannel]

Yep, our busiest tourist season and we have a "muddy, smelly" river through our city.

But you cant really call it a river now.

What a great promotion of the city.

[badooleoo]

Wonder why it filled up so quickly when we only had a little bit of rain after? About 5 days later I went up Gorge Road with some friends and stopped near 6th creek mouth. There was a lot of fast moving water flowing from Kangaroo Creek dam that flooded the grass and roots of trees.

The rain was a cover up, even the media noted that it seemd to fill up rather quickly but didnt really investigate why.

[101silentkiller]

its stink big time god well it is better now and they saw a silenter for a gun in there when they was cleaning it up

[omen351]

looks like the yarra river now

[MrSpinSA]

Good old Adelaide, they are so clever, Too Clever... Clean the lake, while empty, and The Tourists will understand at least look like Council is doing Something....