Locals now avoid using tap water for drinking and washing babies and children, saying it has caused skin irritation, and prefer boxed and bottled water instead.

"That was our food source, the river, our water source. That was our livelihood," said Aboriginal elder Patricia Doyle, in her backyard piled with flotsam discovered in the now-exposed riverbed.

"When you live on a river and you have to have water brought into your town to drink and survive on, what's that saying? It's saying that our system ... isn't looked after properly."