Paradise Dam Improvement Project – Safety and Emergency Management

Safety and Emergency Management

The Sunwater App provides the latest dam information and alerts at your fingertips. Please download it to stay informed about Sunwater dam operations especially during heavy rain and flood events. This information is also available on the main Sunwater Facebook Page.

Sunwater has prepared a Paradise Dam Emergency Response Overview that provides information about how dam risks are being managed.

Paradise Dam’s supply level and current capacity reflect the height of the dam wall. This is necessary to provide clarity for operational and safety matters, and to ensure the community has access to accurate and consistent information. In the event of extreme weather conditions, it is important that 100 per cent capacity represents when the water level reaches the top of the dam wall and is about to spill.

In accordance with regulatory guidelines, Sunwater has updated the Paradise Dam Emergency Action Plan to consider changes to dam stability.

Emergency training exercises are conducted in conjunction with local councils, Queensland Police and Queensland Fire and Emergency Services which comprise the Local Disaster Management Group.

Safety following new concrete concerns (January 2024)

The completion of the Essential Works in early 2021 reduced the risk of dam failure to a 1 in 5000-year event. Prior to this, the dam failure risk was a 1 in 200-year event, such as the community experienced in 2013.

Paradise Dam is safer now than it was and will be so for the life of the project. However, it is still not within the acceptable level of risk for the long term.

Sunwater’s decisions in relation to Paradise Dam have always been about protecting both lives and livelihoods. The new dam wall will meet stringent safety criteria so that it will reliably service the Bundaberg region for the next 100 years.