About 5% of the drinking water from this dam is used by Adelaide and forms the main reserve of Adelaide and the south coast of Australia. Plans to use the Myponga River catchment area as a drinking water reserve were made as early as 1945. The dam construction began in 1957 and was completed in 1962. The dam is not - as in many other cases - fed by the Murray River , but by its local water catchment area. The Myponga River flows from the dam to the Gulf of St. Vincent, where it flows into Myponga Beach. The Myponga Reservoir Treatment Plant was realized in 1993 and supplies about 50,000 people in an area that extends from the McLaren Vale , a wine-growing region , to Victor Harbor .
