"We’re thinking about starting a water polo team. We’re just lucky it wasn’t rugby season. At least the grounds won’t need [to be] irrigated now ... And in another glass half-full scenario, the farmers won’t need to move their K-lines [irrigation] now."
The Maniototo Park sportsground flooded after the heavy rainfall earlier this week caused run-off from a culvert across the road that could not cope with the level of rain.
Mr Dobson said it was the third time in about 15 years the sportsground had flooded to that extent.
He estimated that on Tuesday there was about 1m of water on the rugby ground, which is surrounded by a berm and often pools water during floods.
"It’s great for spectators to sit on when there’s a game on, but when it floods like this, it forms the walls of a lake."
She said the culvert would be looked at as part of the district-wide assessment done once floodwaters had subsided.
In the Omakau, Ophir and Alexandra areas the Manuherikia River was still invading properties and roads in many places, rising yesterday partly from snowmelt.
In Ophir, where one resident described the town as now having had "two 100-year floods in 10 years", sandbags were available for residents who felt their properties were under threat from water.
Parts of many roads remained closed in Central Otago; the Alexandra-Clyde River Track had been closed; residents in Patearoa, Naseby and Ranfurly were being asked to conserve water; and a boil-water notice was in place in Omakau and Ophir.In North Otago, about 850 staff at the Alliance Pukeuri meatworks were told to stay at home as flooding had affected water quality.
In a statement yesterday, Alliance manufacturing general manager Willie Wiese said due to flooding water quality at the Pukeuri plant was not at an acceptable level to process livestock "so we have ceased processing until the situation improves".
"At this stage, we expect processing to resume at Pukeuri next Wednesday," he said.
In the meantime, Alliance was bringing on additional ovine capacity at its Lorneville plant in Southland on Tuesday, and extra capacity at Mataura to process beef.
"We know the disruption will be inconvenient for our farmers, but we’re going the extra mile to minimise any impact and meet our farmers’ processing needs," Mr Wiese said.
