April 24, Oamaru: Farmers are planning a $7.6 million irrigation scheme using Waitaki River water to irrigate about 3300 hectares of the North Otago downlands.
More than 30 farmers in the area from just west of Weston to Horse Gully have given the go ahead for further investigations into the scheme, setting up a steering committee this week.
The proposal, formulated by irrigation companies' director Dave Finlay and two farmers, Snow Mavor and Trevor Meikle, would create a piped and pressurised scheme.
Water would be drawn from a 1m diameter pipe from the Waitaki River, near Gibson's Rd at Papakaio and then pumped to a height of about 150 metres at Horse Gully.
It would be distributed from there to the downlands using two main piped feeds along Oamaru Creek Rd and Airedale-Weston Rd.
This would bring water to farms in the Airedale, Ardgowan and Weston areas.
Mr Finlay, who is a director of both the Lower Waitaki and Kakanui Irrigation Companies, helped formulate the scheme and put the proposal to farmers.
He envisages the scheme being community-driven with backing from both the farming sector and Oamaru people as this season's drought has reinforced the benefits of irrigation.
The scheme would not involve reservoirs or dams and would pump up to 1.5 cumecs on demand from the Waitaki River for on-farm irrigation.
The estimated cost is between $1800 and $2000 a hectare to build and could boost production by 10 stock units per hectare, offer farmers the opportunity to diversify [to] improve the value of farms and generate substantial economic benefits for North Otago.