With a $57million expansion of the scheme under way, the irrigation company, which usually turns the water off on May 31, decided not to switch its pumps back on after the maintenance work was completed yesterday, North Otago Irrigation Company chief executive Robyn Wells said.
Rather than restarting the scheme's roughly 3MW motors and pumps, the irrigation company started work ahead of schedule at the company's Black Point Rd pumping station, where four new motors were being installed.
Seven crews were in the field now and three river crossings - two crossings of the Kakanui River and one of the Kauru River - had been completed over the summer during the construction of 114km of new pipelines, which began in the spring.
"We're pleased with what's happening in terms of these pump stations, what's happening there,'' she said. "We think there are improvement opportunities in the pipe placement and laying part of the project. We're assessing that with our contractor currently, looking at how we can be optimising that.''
During annual plan submissions at the Waitaki District Council last week, Kauru Hill resident Julian Price raised concerns about the deterioration of rural roads under the pressure of the heavy traffic involved in the expansion work.
He asked for assurance a budget was in place for the reinstatement of the roads, including Serpentine Rd, Kininmont Rd and Rodgers Rd, which were "taking an absolute caning'' during the works programme.
Mrs Wells said the irrigation company and contractor McConnell Dowell were concerned about the environment "and want to have as little impact on all users as possible both in the short and long term''.
The contractor was required to operate according to a traffic management plan that complied with the council's and the New Zealand Transport Agency's rules.
"The contractor provides for dust suppression, they manage their speed and they have also been informed of bus routes and tanker routes in order to manage their fleet alongside typical road users,'' she said.
Mrs Wells said "quite significant'' road-user charges for future maintenance were accounted for within the rate the company was paying the contractor and the contractor was "staging delivery of pipe on lighter equipment to reduce the heavy loads on the roads''.
Council roading manager Michael Voss confirmed he had been in contact with the contractor and said there was "work to be done''.
"Some of those roads are getting hammered. They were never designed for that kind of loading, but others are actually standing up really well.''
Once the work was finished, the council would be able to "see what the damage is''.
"What we are doing currently is doing the maintenance to keep the road safe and once they have moved out of it, we will then go in and do a bit more heavy maintenance and bring it back to a good standard,'' Mr Voss said.
