Yatco Lagoon lies on the floodplain of the River Murray with its major connection to the river being adjacent to the township of Moorook..  With the construction of Lock 3 the site became permanently inundated and has remained so since that time.  This move from natural wetting and drying to permanent inundation, while allowing irrigation and domestic water supplies to be sourced from the lagoons, has also resulted in a gradual decline in water quality in the system and the health of fringing trees and other vegetation in some parts of the system. 

Yatco Lagoon, being a large, shallow and permanent floodplain water body, with a total surface area of around 346 hectares, currently acts as a very efficient evaporation pan, and as such, significant water savings could be achieved by re-instating to the system a water regime approaching that which it would have experienced under natural, pre-Lock 3 times. 

Recognising the importance of finding such water savings for the overall health of the River Murray, and for Yatco Lagoon itself, the irrigators operating around Yatco Lagoon, with advice and support from the Hardy Wine Company (Banrock Station Wine and Wetlands Centre), Landcare Australia, Nippy’s Fruit Juices, the Loxton to Bookpurnong Local Action Planning group, River Murray Catchment Water Management Board and the South Australian Department Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation, formed the Yatco Wetland Landcare Group, in December 2006.  The stated objectives of this group are as follows: 
 

1. To develop a Wetland Management Plan, including a Wetting and Drying Operational Plan, for the Yatco lagoon;

2. To improve the quality and efficiency of water supply to current users of the lagoon system by relocating irrigation and domestic water pumping infrastructure to main channel; and

3. To investigate water saving through the reduction of evaporation from the Yatco lagoon system. 
 

The formation of this Landcare group, brings together landholders, community and business sector interests and government agencies to be proactive in pursuing water savings through a range of engineering solutions (see below) that can see wetting and drying reinstated to the system, can see eleven irrigators provided with a piped, better quality water supply sourced from the River Murray, and can see three domestic users given more reliable and better quality water also.  The opportunity exists here for a significant win-win outcome. 

In anticipation of this plan of management being developed, the Yatco Wetland Landcare Group undertook the initial scoping for the possible installation of a temporary earthen bank structure in the North lagoon system. Such a structure being designed to provide an immediate water saving by allowing for complete or partial drying of the system; an action expected to also have significant benefits for the plant and animal communities as well as the water quality of the Lagoon.  The expectation, as set put in this plan, is that such a temporary structure would be later developed into an appropriate permanent structure with a regulator and provisions for native fish passage etc, to allow for the effective implementation of the Wetting and Drying Operational Plan – see Section 5.1.