Cockburn River irrigator Ian Coxhead hopping mad over eight years of river regrowth

That's according to prominent local grower Ian Coxhead, who says the river is filled with bamboo, river oaks and other vegetation.

After years of drought, he's never seen it so bad.

"What they call the river oaks or the she-oaks, they started seeding about 8 years ago when the river really got low," he said.

"Those seeds germinated in the middle of the river. They've grown and continued to grow, and now they're 6-8 metres high and we're not able to get satisfaction from any government department about getting approval to sort the problem out.

"When the river's low that's the time to clear those chokes so the river can maintain its original course."

Former Tamworth Mayor and current President of the Cockburn Valley Water Users Association, James Treloar, said it will take a full-blown flood to clear it out.

But when the next flood does come it will "clear out an enormous amount of rubbish" all the way to Gunnedah, smashing up fences across the region.

"Flood fencing is designed to break, but this is going to rip more than just that out," he said.

"I think it's going to transfer a lot of weeds and rubbish that's not desired downstream. It's very challenging to manage and there doesn't seem to be a program that assists anybody in managing that."

The massive regrowth could also cause erosion, or divert the course of the river, among other environmental problems.

But it's not clear whose job it is to sort out the problem.

Farmers are responsible for managing their half of the river, with the boundary set at the centre.

But Mr Treloar said they are limited in what they can do to clear it out by an alphabet soup of government agencies regulating water works.

There's no Watercare to do what Landcare does on river banks, he said.

"At the end of the day I don't believe anybody is responsible for regrowth. They talk about noxious weeds and things like that, but this isn't noxious weed, this is just regrowth. Technically, I can't go in there and spray chemical and kill trees. I don't know the answer as a landowner, or as a person who's concerned about the environment and what's going to happen with the next flood."

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