Dammed if you do.

ABC contacts an "expert"....

"Dr Kahn has warned that if the government raised the dam wall and continued to keep the dam full, floods such as the one in 1998 would be disastrous."

Who is Dr Kahn? : Dr Khan is an active water researcher with a focus on chemical contaminants in drinking water, wastewater and recycled water.

Ed comment
Now I know government agencies have done some pretty silly things in the past, but one supposes the extra capacity would be used to mitigate against floods and would not be used for storage. The current situation with respect to flood risk in the Nepean/Hawkesbury River Valley, along side the need for water storage with a growing population is unacceptable. Raising the dam wall along with changes to dam management practices will provide a much better outcome. A few more dams, and upgrades of existing dams wouldn't hurt to increase storage capacity for the Sydney Basin. 

The same can also be said of raising the height of flood levies along side our over flowing rivers. This is well and truly over due. Instead we have a government that has its head in the sand and ignores the historical records about natural disasters that we know about all to well. They would rather blow billions away on ridiculous schemes to control the weather through taxes on CO2. The opposition need a poke in the ass on this as well. The time for some real action to deal with natural disasters we are already all too familiar with is long overdue. 

Prof. Bob Carter has some thoughts on this worth reading:
"But natural climate hazard in Australia is so dangerous that nonetheless a need remains for a politically feasible, environmentally sensible and cost-effective climate policy. That policy should be to prepare for and adapt to all climatic hazards, as and when they occur and whatever their cause."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/an-inconvenient-fallacy-20110626-1glmu.html#ixzz2MBOhg4MB