Communities along the Murray River in South Australia are hoping water will begin to flow as freely as money following the passing of the Federal Government's economic stimulus package.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon secured $900 million for the Murray-Darling Basin in the $42 billion package in exchange for its passage through the Senate.

The chief executive officer of Coorong District Council, Tim Drew, says he has been arguing for more funding to revive the Murray River's Lower Lakes region and welcomes today's deal.

"What exactly that means for the Lower Lakes in the Coorong area where we are, we don't exactly know at this stage," Mr Drew said.

"But we'll certainly be hopeful that there'd be money for the buy-back of water.

"Whilst the deal negotiated today sounds promising, what we really need to see in the coming months is water actually flowing down the river to the Lower Lakes."

Mr Drew says he is concerned by the little effect money allocated to the Murray-Darling has had to areas such as the Lower Lakes.

"Whilst it might seem that the money is flowing quite freely, I'm not sure that they'd say the same about the water coming down the river," he said.

"It's actually more of a trickle. It's really dried up over the last two years, so it's not a great situation.

"But we're hoping certainly that it's now going to not quite be a flood. We don't want floods or bushfires or anything of that nature of course, but we'd hope we'd get a lot more water quickly."

Mr Drew says he believes Senator Xenophon used his position appropriately during his stand-off with the Government and has acted in the national interest.

"From our point of view, we think it's a good move," he said.

"We think some of the money can be spent in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin that will help stimulate and revitalise local economies and our local economy in the Coorong.

"The Murray-Darling, with its wet sites throughout the whole Basin, including the Lower Lakes, are absolute icons in Australia and also internationally and we're just letting them die on our watch. I think we would all want to hang our heads in shame.

"I think he's done entirely the right thing."

The deal is also good news for the South Australian Murray Irrigators and its chairman, Tim Whetstone.

"It's pretty evident that with the National Water Plan they've had a lot of money sitting on the mantelpiece for a long time and done nothing with it," Mr Whetstone said.

"We are seeing properties die, we are seeing communities on their knees at the moment, and to have [Senator Xenophon] stand up and give us some acknowledgment that that is happening, it is giving us an inclusion to know that there is someone out there who is really caring for us."

Mr Whetstone says critics who believe Senator Xenophon has held the country to ransom for South Australia's interests need to look at "the big picture".

"We all need to eat food and we all need to have communities that are going to get through these tough times, and this is just part of the process of helping the Murray-Darling Basin," he said.

"I think people are pretty near-sighted if they think that they are going to miss out on $950, when all of a sudden their food bills could be going up by a couple of thousand dollars a year when we have to import all our food."

Adpated from a report by The World Today's Nance Haxton.