Talk:Snowy Mountains Scheme

Untitled
Yep, give me a day or two and I should be able to fill in the requested details. I am also aware that in mordern politically-correct speech that hydro-electric schemes are seen as evil to the envirnoment; but that was not the engineers nor even the politicans original intent. I will try to find figures for both its 'benefits' and damages for the benefit of people without local knowledge of the current issues.

Possible Wiki Links
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 * Can link power generation: ...s into a series of dams, for use in power generation and ultimately for irrigation in both t...
 * Can link American Society of Civil Engineers: ...ering wonder of the modern world by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1967; the scheme interlocks 7 power ...
 * done. --Hemanshu 06:48, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Can link square kilometres: ...metres of aqueducts. Covering some 3200 square kilometres and having employed over 100,000 people...
 * done. --Hemanshu 06:48, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these links may be wrong, some may be right; You can leave positive feedback or negative feedback; Please feel free to delete this section from the talk page. -- Nickj 04:52, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Moved from article:
I moved the following list (presumably a to-do list for missing stuff in the article) from the article page: There's nothing wrong with compiling lists of missing stuff, but that sort of thing does not really belong in the article itself -- Ferkelparade &pi; 09:34, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC) In several articles on the snowy hydro scheme or the snowy river and parks around it, I could not find a map --except for the location in Australia. A map is often more informative than a photograph. DL
 * Details of the scheme (pictures required).
 * History of proposal and construction.
 * Huge number of immigrant workers, many deaths.
 * Economic impact.
 * Current operation (privatization, recent diversion reduction).
 * Explain motivations for scheme (Australia's part in a joint Commonwealth Atomic Bomb project, ect.)

In several articles on the snowy hydro scheme or the snowy river and parks around it, I could not find a map --except for the location in Australia. A map is often more informative than a photograph. DL

Water flows in SA
With regards to the increased water flows down the Murray, I believe that South Australia was instrumental in getting this through. Alphax &tau;&epsilon;&chi; 09:34, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Cost and completion
I have a source (Angus & Robertson concise Australian encyclopeadia, ISBN 0-207-14820-1, which says that the Snowy Mountains Scheme was finished in 1972 at a cost of #810,000,00 - but the article says it was finished in 1974 at a cost of $1bn. Cite your source - I think it's a bit convenient that it took exactly 25 years! Alphax &tau;&epsilon;&chi; 30 June 2005 07:12 (UTC)


 * An anon editor just changed the cost from Austrlain $1 billion to US$1bn. I have reverted but I have no source either way.  A press release from June 2004 by the Deputy PM states that the scheme "was $6 billion in today's money". .  This reference from an address to the Australian Acadamy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1999 by its then president who had been Assistant to Commissioner of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority, states its cost  as $800 million which is equivalent to $6 billion in todays dollars. The scheme was built over 25 years from 1949 to 1974.  It isn't a bit convenient it took 25 years, that is how long it took. --User:AYArktos |  Talk 10:55, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

- Local knowledge is that the scheme was completed ahead of schedule and below budget, if that helps.

sell off
Should mention recent unsuccessful attempt to sell the scheme off--Golden Wattle talk 10:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

NPOV
Stuff like this seems to be biased "It is clear that the Snowy Scheme must be placed under a National Independent Water Manager. The Snowy River is dying." Drunken Pirate (talk) 04:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, seems this is a target article for interesting opinoins as I just removed seemingly unrelated comments about the toxicity of NO2 emmissions of gas fired power turbines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.35.225.229 (talk) 00:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sir William Hudson
There seems to be no mention either here or in the Snowy Hydro article about this rather important figure in the history of the scheme. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * And there ought to be! There's a good article about him on The ANU website, which I stumbled on when I was looking for information on "Snowy River Roll". My question is - should he be a short note here, or his own article with a link? Reynardo (talk) 04:22, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Snow River Flows
The sections in the article about the environmental flows ought to be made into a separate article. They have nothing as such to with the Snowy Mountains Scheme, they are a current political issue. Giving these issues such prominence in the general article creates a bias toward the Snowy River Alliance cause - and there is already a lot of bias in there, with the text implying that the majority of the local community support the flow of the Snowy River, when in fact it is the opposite. It's like if you had an article about the internet with the majority of that article covering viruses and hackers - yes they're related, but there are far more things that should be discussed, like the building and operations of it.

Midditerrenean migrants???
Why is it emphasized in the first paragraph??? There were migrants from over 30 different countries working there, many from Northern Europe with much better professional education, qualifications and experience than some guys from Greece or Italy who were mostly labourers from poor, underdeveloped regions of Italy or Greece and were used to lift heavy stuff during the scheme... Please change it and put emphasis on all migrants in the first paragraph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.129.10.10 (talk) 05:05, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Bosniak migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina were the largest group of the migrants who helped build the scheme
It is a fact that a majority of the migrants who were building the scheme were Bosniaks from Bosnia and Herzegovina. A large population of these were recruited from the poor working conditions of their home country and enticed to come and work in Australia. This needs to be addressed in the article as there is no mention of it currently. Jas315 (talk) 12:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Do the water volume units need to be in metric, imperial and US?
As this is an australian article I suggest just using metric. CamV8 (talk) 02:59, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
 * could we stick to imperial MOS:UNITS ? Dave Rave (talk) 05:10, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * @CamV8 I would also suggest not using units like "gigalitres". Cubic kilometres or cubic metres are appropriate. 84.215.194.30 (talk) 17:30, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Horsepower should be removed under components - power stations, MW is the unit for electrical power. 137.154.193.148|talk) 08:25, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just added archive links to 3 one external links on Snowy Mountains Scheme. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060919222034/http://www.ministers.dotars.gov.au/ja/pressconf/2004/APC9_2004.htm to http://www.ministers.dotars.gov.au/ja/pressconf/2004/APC9_2004.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070830103344/http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/snowyscheme/ to http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/snowyscheme/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090523125734/http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/1park_display.cfm?park=186 to http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/1park_display.cfm?park=186

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Innovation
Sadly I don'thave the details here, but the SMS used a number of innovative approaches to all sorts of things during its construction. Perhaps the most "important" of these is that all vehicles driven on all parts of the scheme were required to be fitted with seatbelts for driver and front seat passenger, and that these seatbelts were required to be used. And this was spectacularly successful! Whilst the number of car crashes were about the same on this project was about the same as for comparable size projects around teh world, the number of deaths and injuries caused by these crashes were vastly lower. Based on and encouraged by this data, NSW and Victorian governments legislated for mandatory seat belt use in their states. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.216.34.139 (talk) 05:25, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070321063753/http://www.asce.org/history/landmark/projects.cfm to http://www.asce.org/history/landmark/projects.cfm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130503080615/http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/energy/hydro/dams/ to http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/energy/hydro/dams/

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External links modified (January 2018)
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I have just modified 4 external links on Snowy Mountains Scheme. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://archive.is/20120718124401/http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=398 to http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=398
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110812042143/http://www.visitnsw.com/town/Guthega.aspx to http://www.visitnsw.com/town/Guthega.aspx
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110706112401/http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/levelThree.asp?pageID=69 to http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/levelThree.asp?pageID=69
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131015232837/http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/snowy/investigating.htm to http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/snowy/investigating.htm
 * Added tag to http://www.smec.com/Default.aspx?aCateId=910

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contractual arrangements
I was looking for references on cost-benefit analyses applied to the scheme (there's a throw-away line in the ABC TV comedy Utopia suggesting that it was a boondoggle), and while I haven't found anything, I did find one newspaper article claiming that the scheme's financial arrangements benefited Victoria and New South Wales to the detriment of other states: https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/stand-by-for-another-snowy-hydro-scheme-ripoff-20170512-gw3982.html

If anyone else has sources confirming this, it would be good to add a section to this article about the finances of the scheme more generally. Robert Merkel (talk) 04:21, 15 March 2022 (UTC)