New water allocations appear to put the needs of irrigators above urban centres in SA.

South Australia’s Minister for Water and the Murray River Ian Hunter says that the opening allocation for irrigators will remain at 36 per cent.

Waterfind CEO Alistair Walsh says the allocation is only at that level because towns around Adelaide have had their allocations reduced.

“For the first time we saw Adelaide and the towns take a cut… 25 per cent allocation to Adelaide's supply and only a 68 per cent allocation to town supply,” Mr Walsh said.

“That cut in their allocations equates to about 115 gigalitres of water which they have made available in essence to other users and irrigators.

“Should that early season allocation have not taken place, that's the equivalent of 21 per cent allocation that irrigators may not have received.

“It's certainly a departure from the previous approach the Department and the State minister have taken.

“I think they are doing all they can to support irrigators through what is significant depletion in currently out storages and inflow situation.”

Some South Australian irrigators told reporters after the announcement that they were disappointed with the opening allocation.

Irrigators had been hopeful that good rainfall would increase the allocation from 36 per cent, a hope many still hold.

“To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement,” South Australian Murray Irrigators chair Caren Martin said.

“There have been three big downpours across the catchment between now and April, so obviously it either that hasn't equated to inflows or it's equated too late in the accounting process.

“We were told that the allocation announcement that was calculated today takes into account inflows up to the May 31and including two weeks forecast from that date, so all of the June heavy rain and inflows have not been accounted into those allocations announcements.”

“Given that people have been watching the inflows and the rain we would have assumed it should have come up in that time, but what I'm hearing is for various reasons it's not going to.”

“At the time (of first announcement) 36 per cent was incredibly low, particularly given the pain local irrigators had gone through to participate in water reform and to sell back their entitlements to the environment and to go through the pain of all this.”