Riverina water supply: region's authorities due for state talks over dam levels

The region's access to water from major dams is controlled by the state government, which is set to begin talks with water authorities about the impact of drought conditions.

Riverina Water engineering director Bede Spannagle told The Daily Advertiser that the authority, which supplies Wagga City, Greater Hume Shire, Lockhart Shire and part of Federation council areas, was not expecting changes to its water 'conservation' levels.

"It's a concern that the dams are only at 30 per cent at this time of year; we are keeping a close watch on them," he said.

"That won't affect us until we come into summer. We need an average or better season at this point."

Two major sources for fresh water in the Riverina, the Burrinjuck and Blowering dams, were at 30 and 32 per cent capacity on Wednesday.

Both dams were at 40 per cent or more during May 2017.

Mr Spannagle said Riverina Water would soon meet with the state government to discuss dam supply levels for next year.

According to WaterNSW, the Murrumbidgee River level at Wagga is down on this time last year and had been falling towards half a metre for the past few weeks.

Mr Spannagle said the river's level was not an immediate issue in terms of drinking water supply.

"The river levels are not something we are concerned about at the moment because we're totally on groundwater," he said.

"Given the drought situation, we ask that consumers be conscious of the water they use and not waste it."

Goldenfields Water, which supplies Bland, Coolamon, Junee, Temora and parts of Cootamundra-Gundagai and Narrandera council areas, was also not predicting any changes to restrictions.

Goldenfields production and services manager Geoff Veneris said he was confident of maintaining supplies across the authority's groundwater, river and dam sources.

"The only time we would look at water restrictions is if the state put restrictions on dam supplies," he said.

"At the moment we have got no issues with our extraction licence entitlement."