#HAPTER 4HE &LOOD 0LAIN s
Murray and distributed in pipes. It is hoped that piping will be extended to other parts of the system and that Wirrengren Plain water saved will become available for (1874) environmental flows into Wyperfeld. From Lake Albacutya, Outlet Creek Lake Agnes takes a tortuous path through the sand (1918) dunes with effluents and flats along the way. Underlying the Mallee is a series WYPERFELD of NNW–SSE low ridges which probaWonga Lake Lake bly mark old coastlines of the Murray Jerriwirrup Basin. The general northerly course of NATIONAL PARK Lake Black Flat Outlet Creek is largely determined by Brambruk Little Black Flat (1976) these ridges, although dunes have inLake Brimin truded across them, causing diversions. House Lake From the outlet of Lake Albacutya to the entrance at Wirrengren Plain it is The Kidneys thirty kilometres in a straight line, but Lake the actual course of the creek is more Werrebean Leg of Mutton Lake than eighty kilometres. When Outlet Creek flows, it fills suc%XTENT OF FLOODING cessively seventeen lakes, including Leg of Mutton Lake (not in the park), Lake Lake Albacutya Werrebean, The Kidneys, Black Flat, (1995) Lake Brambruk, Lake Brimin and Wonga Lake (both effluents), Lake Agnes, and Outlet Creek and Wyperfeld’s lakes between Lake finally, Wirrengren Plain, a huge dry Albacutya and Wirrengren Plain. The dates are lake bed which has not had water since when the lakes last held water. Lake Brambruk’s flooding in 1976 was its first since 1918. 1874. It is believed to have flooded in 1830–34. There are reports of a massive flood in 1853 when water in Wirrengren Plain was over 11 kilometres long, 5 kilometres wide and 3.6 metres deep. Kenyon says that there were flows in Outlet Creek out of Albacutya in 1830– 34, 1851–54, 1870–74 and 1890–93. There was always water at Lake Brimin — if not on the surface, from a well. Since 1900, flows have been much reduced and Albacutya has overflowed on only four occasions: 1910–15, 1917–18, 1956 and 1975–76. Water filled Black Flat in 1911, 1917, 1957 and 1976, Lake Brambruk in 1911, 1918 and 1976, Lake Brimin and Lake Agnes in 1911 and 1918, and Wirrengren Plain, not at all, although water just reached there in 1911 and was close to doing so in 1918. After the 1976 flooding the water in Black Flat and Lake Brambruk dried out in November 1977.