Water supply passes three-year high

Melbourne's water storages have passed a major milestone after steady winter rain.
Reservoirs trickled past the 40 per cent full mark on Tuesday, an amount not seen in
almost three years.
The fast-filling supply is far above the all-time low of 25.6 per cent full seen
just over a year ago in June 2009.
Storages have been filling at an average of one per cent capacity every week in
August and are up over 220 billion litres compared to this time last year.
Water supply manager John Woodland says the high levels are due to steady rain,
lower water use and more supply coming from the Sugarloaf pipeline.
"The catchments are quite wet and we're now in the wettest period of the year, so
we'd expect to see storages bank more water to build a buffer ahead of the drier,
summer months," he said in a statement.
The state government eased water restrictions to stage two this week, allowing
households to hand-water gardens and wash cars with a bucket.