Tenders Soon for Tumut 3 Project

22 September 1965 The Canberra Times 

Tenders will be called soon for the first work on the Tumut 3 project in the Snowy Mountains.

The Minister for National Development, Mr Fairbairn, said in a statement today that the Tumut 3 project was the final major work in the £400 million scheme, and one of the largest individual components in it.  

Jounama Dam, which would be on the lower Tumut River near Talbingo, would be an earth and rock fill dam 140ft high. It would have a 145ft concrete paved spillway crossed by a road bridge.

Talbingo Dam

Included in the Tumut 3 project would be the 530ft high Talbingo Dam, which was being designed, and Tumut 3 power station, which would have a total installed capacity of 1.5 million kw.

Unusual features

This project would incorporate a number of features unprecedented on the Snowy scheme, includeing pumped storage facilities.

A third of the planned installed capacity of the station would be available for pumping water during off-peak hours from a pondage downstream, of the power station back to Talbingo Reservoir.

This would subsequently be re-used by the turbines in the power stations at times of peak demand for electricity.

This facility was being designed to give the station a more favourable degree of operating flexibility in the combined electricity systems of New South Wales and Victoria.