Narrandera community suffers after floods contaminate water supply and road closures keep tourists out

On Thursday, Narrandera Council announced the recent flood conditions have seen river water enter the treated water storage.

While the council has now addressed the issue at the treatment plant, a small volume of contaminated water entered the town network.

As a result, council said this has made drinking water in Narrandera Township "unsafe to consume" and has also caused discolouration.

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Council has put out some advice for residents on how to safely use the water until the current situation is resolved.

"Water used for drinking or food preparation should be brought to a rolling boil to make it safe. Kettles with automatic shut off switches can do this," the council said.

Council is encouraging locals to use bottled water or cool boiled water for drinking, washing uncooked food, making ice, cleaning teeth, gargling and pet's drinking water.

The water is still considered safe for bathing, while dish washing is recommended in hot soapy water and clothes washing should be kept to a minimum to prevent staining due to water discolouration.

It comes as Narrandera records it's latest peak along the Murrumbidgee River with a height of 8.5 metres about 8.45am on Tuesday.

But access to the town has been severely restricted for weeks due to multiple flood peaks passing through the region since the start of October.

Access eased somewhat on Thursday morning as the Irrigation Way opened to all traffic. Until that point, the only road out of town was the Newell Highway.

The Sturt Highway remains closed between Darlington Point to Collingullie, while the Newell is also closed from Gillenbah to Jerilderie.

Narrandera mayor Neville Kschenka said these ongoing closures are having a significant impact on local businesses.

While most of the town centre remains above flood level, businesses in the suburb of Gillenbah have not fared quite as well, including a newly built Mobil service station that went underwater.

But even for those businesses that remain open, the mayor said the difficulties getting to and from Narrandera has seen a major decline in business.

"It's been a lot quieter, because there's not much activity," Cr Kschenka said.

"Hospitality businesses including restaurants, coffee shops, motels and hotels have all been seriously affected with a big downturn."

The mayor said this came on top of a major downturn in the retail sector due to the current state of the Australian economy.

"It's certainly been challenging, and they will certainly be looking forward to [the highways] reopening, but when that will be is hard to predict, because we keep on hearing forecasts of more rain," Cr Kschenka said.

One affected business is Lake Talbot Tourist Park and owner Graeme Hoare said things are not looking great at present.

For example, Mr Hoare said the business had to refund over $4000 earlier this week, after buses were unable to make it to town.

"That's what we have to put up with," he said.

Mr Hoare said while this season would usually see a steady flow of business, it certainly is not the case right now, and he's not terribly optimistic about the weeks ahead.

"We don't know how it will be when the [Christmas] holiday break comes, whether the river is going to be down then, who knows, because we can't forecast that," he said.

Mr Hoare acknowledged many other townsfolk were also in the same boat.

"It's not only us suffering, but also the local farmers and businesses, because people aren't going through on the Newell Highway," he said.

"While there are diversions [in place to access Narrandera], people simply aren't travelling, firstly because of the floods around this area and secondly because of the condition of the roads," Mr Hoare said.