It's lunchtime in Griffith, the unofficial capital of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in the heart of the NSW Riverina.

Locals bustle in and out of the town's famous Italian cafes, while smart town cars, dirty farm utes and family four-wheel-drives do the loop of a busy main street, looking for a park.

It feels like a place that's doing well. When you talk to the locals, they'll proudly confirm it's true.

This irrigation city of about 20,000 people has been buoyed by the arrival of the nut industry with its vast walnut and almond plantings and processing hubs.

A local chicken processor continues to be a major source of employment.

There's a brand new fish farm trying to reintroduce Australia's native Murray cod to dinner plates here and overseas, from its purpose-built nursery and dug-out ponds outside of the town.

Massive wine operations which grew from small family businesses sparkle at night: a sprawling industrial complex sending Riverina wine to the world.

Thanks to a few wet years and high commodity prices, the irrigation farms that fan out around Griffith across the Murrumbidgee floodplain are getting decent returns for produce like oranges, rice and cotton.

But even in the good years, the politics of water, and the recent memory of the brutal Millennium drought, are never far out of mind.

For communities like Griffith, those twin shocks remain inextricably linked.

"The town is very vibrant," local farmer Terry McFarlane says.

Terry McFarlane oversees the pumpkin seed harvest on his farm just outside Griffith, NSW. The harvester picks up and crushes the pumpkins to collect the seed inside. ( ABC: Anna Vidot )

He's watching a tractor pull an elaborate piece of machinery up and down the rows on his farm just outside town, picking up and pulverising pumpkins to collect the seeds inside.

Mr McFarlane's parents arrived in the Riverina in the 60s; he and his wife Maxine bought the land in 1996, raising their children on the mixed farm which produces seeds for other vegetable growers.

He and his community adapted, Mr McFarlane says, to drought and the Basin Plan, and in recent years they've reaped the rewards of good weather and increased diversification.

"Certainly it's been helped by the nut industry coming to town, [there are] almonds and walnuts all over the place, and the community is very vibrant at the moment, very strong," he says.

Cotton, with its higher return and lower water use, has increasingly become an option for Riverina farmers in an area where it wasn't grown at all a decade ago.

"People are more careful with their water now," he says.

"They certainly search out higher-value crops; the cotton industry has been quite amazing. We only had one gin for a while, but now there's two others.

"So the area's really strong, still."

The Basin Plan and the Millennium drought

Kicking off progress towards a Basin Plan, the Howard government's 2007 Water Act came in the midst of a decade-long drought, arguably the worst in Australia's recorded history.

It was to be a 10-year, $10-billion attempt to rescue the Murray-Darling's crippled environment, while addressing the over-allocation of river water for irrigation and cementing a national, bipartisan agreement on water-sharing that had eluded the Commonwealth and its Basin states since Federation.

Before it had decided how much water it wanted for the environment, the Commonwealth started buying entitlements from irrigators who were willing to sell.

The Millennium drought had already taken a substantial toll on the mental and economic health of communities, and plenty of farmers were prepared to take up the Commonwealth's offer.

But the buyback program split communities.

For many farmers, and local businesses which relied on a healthy irrigation industry, the buybacks were perceived as an attack: a government-mandated attempt to make the drought permanent.

For some, it's unlikely that anger will ever go away. And, in some communities, the Basin Plan's impact has been severe.

But something else happened in places like Griffith, too: farmers adapted.

Adapting and embracing a new way of farming

"You've just got to get on with it," says Chris Morsehead, pictured at home on his farm just outside Griffith, NSW. ( ABC: Anna Vidot )

Just outside Griffith, irrigator Chris Morshead bluntly describes the plan as "a necessary evil", and dismisses in frustration the continuing crusade from some farmers to go back to the way things were before.

"You've just got to get on with it," he says.

"We can't just keep burying our head in the sand and saying 'we've got to repeal it, we've got to shut it down, we've got to get all the water back', because it's just not going to happen ... it's a fallacy and a fantasy.

"Those who get in and get on with it, will prosper."

The way he farms now would be unrecognisable to his grandfather, Chris Morshead says.

It's very different, too, to the way things were done when he came home from his city job to join his father in the family business.

Farmers value their water more now, he says. Every drop delivered to the property has to be accounted for.

For a decade, it's been a rare and brave farmer who has been prepared to publicly praise any aspect of the Basin Plan.

But Mr Morshead is unequivocal.

"The on-farm efficiency arm of the Basin Plan is completely invaluable," he says.

'One of the greatest outcomes that could ever have been attained'

The Commonwealth started its water recovery effort by buying back irrigators' entitlements, but it later rolled out another approach.

Included in the 2012 Basin Plan largely as a result of successful lobbying by irrigation lobby groups, the Federal Government started paying farmers to improve their water efficiency by modernising and upgrading their paddocks and irrigation infrastructure.

In return, farmers permanently surrendered the water they saved to the Commonwealth, for the environment.

The idea was to return water to the rivers, while trying to minimise the impact on the Basin's capacity to produce food and fibre.

Critics argue that is a vastly more expensive way to recover less water than simply buying irrigators' entitlements outright.

For Mr Morshead, it's been a triumph.

"I've heard people say they don't think it's a good idea, that's rubbish, it's one of the best things that has ever happened," he says.

"It minimises our labour inputs, it increases our efficiencies; it's increased our returns, our effectiveness, our use of machinery, our production systems, our flexibilities.

"It was one of the greatest outcomes that could ever, ever have been attained."

Rob Houghton on his farm near Leeton, NSW. He was "ecstatic" with the results from his first season using his more efficient paddock and irrigation infrastructure system. ( ABC: Anna Vidot )

A little further down the highway, irrigator Rob Houghton exchanged 183 megalitres of entitlement for $2,300 per megalitre saved — "exchanging water for technology", is how he puts it.

This summer was the first test of his new automated setup, something he says he could not have done without the Basin Plan's infrastructure program.

"I'm ecstatic about the program; I think it's probably the single most beneficial change that I've made to our business since I've been farming, so 25 years."

For Mr Houghton, the Basin Plan isn't just about water recovery, it's an opportunity to think bigger.

"It's about us, as a community, looking at how we extract water, why we extract water, and what uses we put that water to; and also how we look after our environment.

"We've got a big responsibility to get this plan right — all of us — policy makers right down to the farm level."

Mr Houghton is optimistic, but he sees challenges ahead too.

He says it's essential for communities, governments and bureaucrats alike to keep their focus firmly on outcomes, to make sure the plan is delivering the triple bottom line benefits — environmental, economic and social — that it promised.

"I must say, though, it's probably the most exciting time to be in irrigated agriculture: we've got water, we've got technology, we've got good commodity prices and a range of crops we can grow."

Cop it in the neck or take advantage of it: Coleambally charts its course

"It was coming at us no matter what," Coleambally irrigator Trent Gardiner is proud of how his community banded together to make the most of the Basin Plan. ( ABC: Anna Vidot )

South of Griffith, the small community of Coleambally proudly calls itself Australia's youngest country town: it celebrates its 50th birthday next year.

It was built to take advantage of the irrigated farming opportunities promised by the Snowy scheme, without which it would not exist.

Coleambally farms are served by a network of open channels which deliver water from the Murrumbidgee River further north.

It's the kind of community which was tipped to suffer most if water was permanently bought out of irrigation for the environment.

"We were a community of very, very angry people [at the start of the Basin Plan]," says Trent Gardiner, a local rice and cotton grower who farmed here first with his parents, and now alongside his son.

He credits strong leadership in the community, with charting a more positive way forward.

"It was coming at us no matter what: one option was to snub it, but cop it in the neck. The other option was to take advantage of it as best we could for our farming business and hopefully for our community.

"We had our main community leaders that were promoting a better way through this than just getting angry.

"We had lots of night-time meetings with our irrigator members to convince them that the Basin Plan, although it was a big, ugly thing to them, and could decimate their community if it took the water out, there were other ways of going about it.

"And there were whole community meetings with shop owners, townspeople as well, as well as the farmers.

"We saw our way through that by just saying we have to get more efficient or we'll be out. And we'll show the government, not them show us ... so we did."

Like many families around the district, the Gardiners took part in the on-farm efficiency program, surrendering 100 megalitres of water in exchange for Commonwealth money to turn a water-inefficient, undeveloped farm into something "state of the art".

Coleambally Irrigation CEO John Culleton's spartan office is brightened by a hand-woven coat, a gift from a visiting tour group of farmers and water officials from Uzbekistan. ( ABC: Anna Vidot )

Coleambally Irrigation now regularly plays host to touring groups of farmers and bureaucrats from around the world, who come to check out their channel system efficiencies.

That's a matter of great pride for Coleambally Irrigation chief executive John Culleton, who arrived in town in the middle of the drought, when the Basin Plan process was in its early stages.

A long previous career in the Australian Army — "that's about leading people through difficult circumstances" — prepared him for what was to come.

He will leave the organisation at the end of this month, after shepherding his members through more than eight tough years of water politics.

"My focus was on convincing people that we would survive, that we would deal with the Basin Plan. I think we've done better than survive," he says.

"My overwhelming memory will be one of pride, that the community came together rather than collapsing in on itself."

Where to from here: farmers anxious to reach the end of the road

Smoky skies: as rice stubble is burned off in this Riverina paddock, a farmer loads fertiliser for his next crop. ( ABC: Anna Vidot )

Water politics roared back onto the national political agenda late last year, and governments are now preparing to make some big decisions about the plan's future.

The document which became law in 2012 contained complex and unresolved questions about how the overall water recovery target might change, some of which governments must resolve before the end of this year.

Mr Gardiner says the anger that once gripped Coleambally has mostly been replaced by a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity about the changes that may come. He says people are eager for the process to be finished.

"We need to get this Basin Plan implemented in the least worst situation that we can, and move on from that," he says.

While the plan's current target of 2,750 gigalitres may change, the Commonwealth's vast environmental water holding is now closing in on that figure.

At the end of June this year, it had acquired 2,080 gigalitres across the Basin.

But the pace of water recovery has slowed since the drought broke, the major buyback rounds ended, and the low-hanging infrastructure gains were picked off.

And, with the government prevented from continuing to buy irrigators' water capped by legislation at 1,500 gigalitres, much of the remaining environmental water will have to come from further investment in infrastructure.

But even irrigators who grew to appreciate the efficiency gains on offer under the Basin Plan, believe they've now done enough.

None of the farmers who spoke to the ABC for this story intend to give up any more water to the Commonwealth.

Mr Morshead is characteristically blunt, saying the Commonwealth should expect a campaign of "civil disobedience" around Griffith if it pursues a plan to acquire an additional 450 gigalitres for the environment, above the original 2,750 gigalitre target.

Both Federal Labor and South Australia insist that if the plan is to be fully implemented and the river returned to health, the additional water must be delivered.

"If that was to occur, we've got a Rolls Royce system with no petrol to put in it [and] that would be a horrifically ordinary outcome," Chris Morshead says.

"You've got your pound of flesh, but you're not getting a drop of blood."