Ecologists have spent the last week surveying wildlife at the river in an effort to gauge its normal state, should the city fall back into severe drought and need its water delivered through the pipeline.

But, as recent rainfall has secured the town water supply for the next 24 months at Chaffey Dam, WaterNSW environmental services manager Evan Webb said it's unlikely the pipeline will be switched back on for a while.

"We're looking at platypus, but also vegetation and other parts of the river system - macro-invertebrates like water bugs," he said.

"We're doing that to meet our obligations under the temporary pipeline approvals, but currently because of the breaking drought and the filled storage at Chaffey we aren't operating the pipeline.

"In terms of monitoring changes, there's unlikely to be an outcome because the pipeline's not running."

The $44 million pipeline build finished in April and meant that for the first time ever, there were no water transmission losses since Chaffey Dam was built.

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The pipeline is switched off with the dam currently at 41.9 per cent and water is being delivered with flows down the river.

Trigger thresholds were put in place, so if stressors like fish kills or drops in water quality occurred, decisions would need to be made between WaterNSW and the Peel Environmental Technical Water Advisory Group.

When the drought is over, WaterNSW will look at a more permanent plan for how the pipeline will be run.

At the moment, ecologists are gathering data on the waterway which will be fed back to government agencies that have a stake in the river system.

A healthy male platypus has already been spotted in one of the key habitat areas along the banks.

Environmental DNA monitoring is also underway, which is how WaterNSW identifies the other organisms or creatures that live in the river.

The surveys were conducted this week, and the data will be compiled.