They say time heals all wounds but like still water, some run deeper than others. It would have been unthinkable nine years ago for the MDBA to hold a water conference in Griffith.
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It's clear that some of the anger of how that process was started and forced upon the MIA by the government has since subsided.
The memory of when Griffith took the day to make point that no water would equal no Griffith in 2010 is still fresh in the memory of water bureaucrats.
And yet the MDBA's staff were all over the conference ready to answer questions and have robust discussions.
Certainly there's still anger about the plan and how it was done, as evidenced by the fact that no peak bodies representing the region's farmers took up the invitation to talk about how the plan had affected them at the conference.
In the years between the plan being introduced and this week's conference there's been changes to how the government treats the plan, how the plan is implemented and the staff that are asked to do the work.
The MBDA now has a third of its staff based outside Canberra, including an office in Griffith, there was a MinCo agreement in 2018 to recover a further 450 gigalitres through efficiency measures.
There's been countless inquiries and reports and a convoy to Canberra.
There's been two inspectors-general for the Basin named, the MDBA was split into two and the federal water minister has committed to no more water buybacks.
It really begs the question of whether the government has wasted some of the time and money that has gone into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan during its first years of operation.
Southern basin irrigators have had their water use monitored and metered since irrigation began and Keith Pitt has also promised $25 million for northern basin water metering during the River Reflections conference this week.
Although, it appears that former federal water minister David Littleproud also announced $25 million for northern basin water metering in 2019 following the mass fish deaths in the Basin's north.
The politicians who have rushed to implement this plan, and who are strenuously working to keep to its schedule, perhaps need to consider the timeframes.
People who are being asked to make generational change to how they use water, and the people who's job it is to ensure compliance need that time.
