The gates have been opened and water is flowing into Lake Menindee for the first time in five years.
The decision was made to fill Lake Menindee after updated modelling showed a total of 650 gigalitres to 850GL will hit the Menindee Lakes system following heavy rain and floods in the Northern Basin during the last couple of months.
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Lake Menindee is the largest in the Menindee Lakes system and is 14 kilometres wide and 16km long, with a capacity to hold 1731GL.
NSW Water Minister Melinda Pavey previously said that the size of the inflows would determine whether water was diverted into Lake Menindee or passed through the Lakes system to count towards NSW Murray general security allocations.
This week Ms Pavey said the inflows to Lake Menindee would go a long way to replenishing the environment, town water supply weirs and agricultural producers, bringing "sustained relief to a region of NSW that suffered severely during the drought."
Menindee resident Graeme McCrabb said six weeks ago they wouldn't have even contemplated water going into Lake Menindee.
"To see those gates open up...it's fantastic," Mr McCrabb said.
The opening of the Lake Menindee gates means control of the water (in the Menindee Lakes) could soon be handed over to the Murray Darling Basin Authority from NSW, as the trigger point of 640GL is expected to be reached with the two top Lakes, Wetherell and Pamamaroo already holding 371GL.
"As much as there's a lot of good there's some nervousness about how the Basin Authority will control the flows downstream going forward," Mr McCrabb said.
"The issue is...how much they take out of our two top lakes."
Meanwhile, Southern Riverina Irrigators have disputed suggestions that there is a battle brewing between Menindee locals and Murray irrigators over the inflows.
Chairman Chris Brooks said they supported storing water in Menindee.
The group argued bypassing the lake system would do little to preserve future water requirements Menindee and Lower Darling and did not align with the key principle of the basin plan, a connected river system.
Spokesperson for the Southern Connected Basin Communities (SCBC), which represents groups from the across the Southern Basin, Sophie Baldwin echoed the sentiment, saying they would no longer allow government and departments to write the narrative for them.
"We stand united in our desire to see water return to Menindee and flow down the Darling as it has done for the many generations," she said.
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