Orange mayor Reg Kidd said while Suma Park Dam was currently only at 26.7 per cent Orange residents were adapting to the level 4 water restrictions.

Usage levels have been dropping and it is now down to 142 litres per person per day.

That is well below the monthly average for June in the past three years which was about 170 litres per person per day.

Cr Kidd said Orange cannot use the Macquarie River pipeline to top up the dam when the water level in the river was below the trigger point of having a flow of 119 megalitres a day.

"There is not much water going down it at the moment," he said.

However, Cr Kidd said if the situation in Orange became dire it could be used.

"If there was bugger-all water we would be able to get water," he said.

"We'd extract water to top up our dam.

"If it doesn't rain this year and usage continues at the present rate we would still have enough water for one and a half years."

In April Cr Kidd said the combination of the Macquarie River pipeline and council's stormwater harvesting scheme had added 790 megalitres of water to Suma Park dam in the previous six months.

"When there are good flows in the Macquarie River we can pump to increase what's in our own storage," he said.

"It hasn't rained much lately and we haven't used the pipeline consistently, but we certainly have been over the last couple of years to keep our supply topped up."

Cr Kidd said without the pipeline and stormwater harvesting scheme Orange could have been in a "precarious situation" now.

The combined storage of Suma Park and Spring Creek dams is currently at 34.63 per cent which is below the trigger point of 35 per cent for the introduction of level five restrictions.

However, council last week delayed making that move.