The authority made the decision late last week to re-open the pipes yesterday, with the plan to continue running water from the lake throughout November.

Systems Manager Andrew Rose said the decision was made to run water out of Lonsdale to replenish water in Taylors Lake, which had been used for an environmental flow in October down the Wimmera River.

Mr Rose said the authority planned to run between 150 and 200 megalitres per day from Lonsdale into the channel system. This would effectively halve the current level of the lake.

Lonsdale currently holds a little more than 13,000 megalitres in storage and Mr Rose said by the end of November, he anticipated the lake's level would be maintained at around 7000 megalitres.

``We will run the water for the bulk of November and this will result in some water being left in the lake,'' he said.

``We haven't made any plans if it rains between now and then. If it does, we will take that into consideration at the time.''

This will be the second time the pipes have been opened at Lake Lonsdale. GWMWater started running water out of the lake in September after the level had reached 17% of capacity.

The decision drew criticism from the public, lake users and the Northern Grampians Shire Council, but was strongly defended by the authority.

Mr Rose said at that time, the use of water from Lake Lonsdale had been discussed and agreed to as part of the authority's reservoir review consultation conducted last year.

``We have always agreed that Lonsdale is an integral part of the overall system. However, when water is available, the agreement was we would transfer it to where it can be used.''

Mr Rose said the dry spell over the past two weeks had not impacted a great deal on storages or water consumption in the Wimmera region and this was pleasing.

``While the system is the best it has been for some years (at 15.5%), we are still very mindful of the fact people have to be careful with water usage,'' Mr Rose said.

``What the restrictions have done is give people responsibility for their water usage.''

GWMWater eased restrictions mid-October from stage four to stage one, but Mr Rose said it appeared residents had adopted a responsible attitude towards watering.

``Consumption hasn't gone up which is good from our point of view,'' he said.

``I think people realise why the harsher restrictions needed to be put in place and they adopted water saving measures to cope with that.

``What we are seeing now is most people sticking to those measures, even though restrictions have eased, and they are still saving on water usage.''