Drought has seen water levels in the man-made lake drop to 2.4 per cent of capacity, with just 8846 megalitres left in the 365,000-megalitre storage.

The lake will be decommissioned in the middle of the year but Lake Mokoan project director David Jeffery said that had not caused the water shortage.

“It’s entirely due to the drought conditions,” he said.

“We’ve had drought-like conditions in the Broken system for at least the past 10 years.”

The previous lowest water level on record was in February and March in 1983 when Lake Mokoan was at about 4 per cent full.

The lake has not been at capacity since June 1989.

Department of Sustainability and Environment statewide catchment and water program leader Tony Long said between 200 and 300 carp had died in the lake about two weeks ago because of the low water levels.

“There’s been some carp deaths as more isolated bodies of water dried out,” he said.

“There are isolated bodies of water separated from the main lake.

“There was a small layer of water but not enough to allow for survival.”

Mr Long said there was still two major wetlands at the lake with a water depth of between 40-50cm and there had been no fish deaths in that area.

But he said more were inevitable.

So far 107 Murray cod and 4200 golden perch have been relocated from the lake in the past year.

Mr Long said water levels were too shallow to allow any more netting of fish but more may be able to be rescued if they moved to a channel upstream of the wall and the quantity of the fish was high enough and conditions in the channel allowed work.

Mr Jeffery said construction of a $14.5 million pipeline to supply water to Lake Mokoan diverters was progressing “at a furious pace”.

The system will see diverters supplied with water from the Broken River via a pumping station and 27.5km of pipeline which will connect to a 75-megalitre storage pond.

Mr Jeffery said major concrete works on the pumping station were completed and contracts awarded for pump installation and control gear.

Diverters would receive water from the system in March.