Premier Mike Rann is presenting South Australia's projects – Murray Futures – at today's COAG meeting in Sydney as the State's priority bid for funding under the $12.9 billion Water for the Future program.

"Murray Futures focuses on three key areas - securing future water supplies, renewing industries and communities, and securing improvements to the river's health by providing flexibility in how the system is managed in South Australia," Mr Rann said.

"Murray Futures is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get it right for the river in South Australia - from the Murray mouth right through to the border.

"At the top of the list will be a project worth in excess of $100 million to completely re-engineer the water infrastructure within the townships, communities and irrigators that draw water from the Lower Lakes.

"The Lower Lakes are in a dire condition and the current drought – the worst on record – means it is failing those communities that rely on it for drinking water and irrigation of crops and stock.

"Our plan would end the use of water from the Lower Lakes by those communities and vastly improve their water security and water quality.

"Instead, they would be connected to high quality water drawn from the River Murray at around Tailem Bend via a new integrated network of pipelines around the Lower Lakes communities and farms that would link to the existing pipelines."

Under the plan irrigation pipelines would be built to supply to Currency Creek and Langhorne Creek and potable water pipes would go to the Narrung and Poltalloch Peninsulas and the Raukkan Aboriginal Community.

"Aspects of this project can start almost immediately if we were able to get cracking on it, and the entire project could be finished within two years," he said.

"In addition, we would be seeking about $200 million to undertake medium to long term projects around the Lower Lakes and Coorong to help save and protect the future of this valuable Ramsar site.

"This would include investigating and consulting the community on a range of new infrastructure works that would enable the better environmental management of the Lower Lakes – especially in terms of diluting hyper-saline water from the southern lagoon of the Coorong and regulating the flow of water between the lakes."

Another major priority project would be to secure more than $150 million to reinvigorate the Riverland irrigation industries.

"This overhaul of the way in which Riverland irrigators manage their farms and the wider industry would be a voluntary process developed in partnership with the irrigation industry – and if taken up as an option by enough irrigators, it could transform the economy and environment in that area," Mr Rann said.