One thing that should be remembered is that these rivers are ephemeral anyway.

There is a story about a riverboat crew mutinying and burning the boat either at Tilpa or Menindee after they had been stuck there for 2years.

The boats used to ride the floods, and at Coach and Horses campground there is a sign advising of a little side creek that the boats used to take out onto the flood plain and go something like 20 miles to pick up wool.
Seeing now there are no boats, it's probably a good thing to pump at flood times.

Apparently the Coorong used to be blocked off naturally for long periods of time before all the barrages etc were put in. If you have ever been to the ports on the Murray , you will see the piles are about 30-40 metres high. Those times will never return as the floods were destructive.

One of the problems with water allocation was caused in about 2002 when the NSW Government separated water entitlements from property, allowing water rights holders to sell ,or lease their entitlement.
Many entitlements were not utilized fully until then, but when the law was changed, obviously someone who could use the water for a profitable purpose would buy or lease water rights from their neighbours. This increased the total use of water.

Regards Philip A