The Otago Regional Council has fleetingly considered building a dam near Ida Burn after analysing a $4 million aerial geophysical survey to which it contributed $1 million in 2007.
Few details have emerged from the aerial survey by listed Glass Earth Gold, as collated data is historically not released publicly for several years by government mine-permitting agency Crown Minerals.
However, the Otago aerial data will all be revealed by the end of 2010.
ORC chief executive Graeme Martin was a speaker at the New Zealand branch of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) conference in Queenstown on Thursday and gave an outline of why the data was sought.
Glass Earth, which is looking to become a gold producer with holdings in the Ida Valley and near Ophir in Central Otago, undertook the $4 million, 1.3 million ha aerial survey in 2007.
Mr Martin said geophysical data was difficult for small to medium-sized businesses or individuals to access, and while Crown Minerals and the Ministry of Economic Development declined to assist financially, it was an opportunity for the ORC to participate.
In the mining sector, the involvement of the ORC was applauded, showing companies and local authorities could co-exist, with potential benefits for communities and businesses.
Mr Martin said results for the ORC would include improved groundwater knowledge, the ability to scope out potential places for dam building and infrastructure-related projects, such as roading and land stability issues.
When asked if Otago had more or less groundwater than was known about before the survey, Mr Martin said only that water was found to be sparse around the Manuherikia River and that some data had prompted consideration of a dam near Ida Burn, fleetingly.
He highlighted the ORC was bound by the Crown Minerals convention on releasing data, which was the intellectual property of Glass Earth, but he expected it to be released by the end of next year.
Glass Earth had, since the survey, narrowed down 20 prospective gold targets to about six.
Reporter Simon Hartley is a guest of AusIMM at the conference.
