Fed by melting snows, the river plays a major role in the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme, one of the world's largest power and irrigation (irrigation and drainage) projects. Its waters are impounded at a high elevation, diverted through tunnels under the Australian Alps to generate electricity, then discharged into the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers. Immensely inspiring for the ambitious young country during the years following World War II, the project was viewed more critically with the rise of environmentalism in the closing decades of the 20th century, when it was strongly proposed to return some of the Snowy's natural flow to the river. The stream was explored in 1839 by Angus McMillan and memorialized later that century in Australian poet “Banjo” Paterson's popular ballad, “The Man from Snowy River.”