The Eppalock Soil Conservation Project,Victoria, Australia: The Prevention of Resevoir Sedementation and the Politics of Catchment Management

The Eppalock Soil Conservation Project (ESCP) is a celebrated ‘whole-of-catchment’ management project implemented upstream of Lake Eppalock reservoir in Victoria, Australia. In 1959, a Victorian Parliamentary Public Works Committee (PPWC) found that the enlarged reservoir would be endangered by sedimentation as a result of severe erosion in the catchment. One of the main objectives of the ESCP was therefore to minimise the amount of sediment entering Lake Eppalock. The reservoir has not subsequently filled with sediment, and this fact has been used to suggest that the catchment scheme was successful in preventing reservoir sedimentation. It is argued here, however, that the estimate of sedimentation presented by the PPWC was inflated and that, even in the absence of a catchment management scheme, Lake Eppalock was not in danger of losing a significant proportion of its capacity to sedimentation. The proponents of the ESCP may have overstated the sedimentation threat to provide justification for what has become an outstanding catchment management project. Prior to the ESCP and despite overpowering evidence, successive governments had failed to respond to the threat of soil erosion. The immediate threat to a large public asset provided the politically powerful lever that was required to justify a total catchment approach to erosion control. Given the circumstances leading up to the 1959 PPWC Inquiry, the actions of the ESCP proponents cannot be criticised. However, this study provides a timely reminder that we cannot accept the apparent achievements of natural resource management projects without first examining the science and politics driving the project.