Editing Albury (section)

===Lake Hume===
[[File:Eight gates open at Hume Dam.jpg|thumb|right|Hume dam, with eight spillway gates open]]
[[Lake Hume]] is situated on the Murray River {{convert|10|km}} upstream of Albury. The Hume Dam (colloquially termed the [[Weir]] locally) wall construction took 17 years, from 1919 to 1936. A hydro-electric power plant supplies 60&nbsp;MW of power to the state grid. When full, the lake covers {{convert|80|sqkm}}.
[[File:Lake Hume from the air in summer.JPG|thumb|Lake Hume from the air in Summer]]
The lake was created for [[irrigation]] purposes and has caused significant changes to the flow patterns and ecology of the Murray River. Before the construction of the Hume Weir, flows in normal (non-drought) years were low in summer and autumn (though still significant overall), rising in winter due to seasonal rainfall and reaching a flood-peak in late spring due to snow-melt in the Murray and its tributaries' alpine headwaters. The flow is now effectively reversed, with low flows in winter and sustained, relatively high flows in late spring, summer and early autumn to meet irrigation demands, although the spring flood peak has been virtually eliminated. The water released from the base of the Hume Weir is unnaturally cold, at least {{convert|10|C-change}} colder than it naturally should be.<ref>NSW Cold Water Pollution Interagency Group (2012) ''Cold Water Pollution Strategy in''
NSW – report on the implementation of stage one'', NSW Department of Primary Industries, a division of NSW''
Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services, Sydney, New South Wales, {{ISBN|9781742563107}}</ref> This flow reversal, temperature depression, and removal of the spring flood peak, has led to the drying out and loss of many billabongs and has harmed the populations of native fish of the Murray River such as the iconic [[Murray Cod]].<ref>{{cite book | year = 1990 | title = The Murray | editor1 = Norman Mackay | editor2 = David Eastburn | publisher=Murray-Darling Basin Commission | location = Canberra, Australia | isbn = 1-875209-05-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author1=Lugg, A.|author2=Copeland, C. |name-list-style=amp |title=Review of cold water pollution in the Murray–Darling Basin and the impacts on fish communities|journal=Ecological Management and Restoration|date=2014|volume=15|issue=1|pages=71–79|doi=10.1111/emr.12074|bibcode=2014EcoMR..15...71L }}</ref>