The board considered a report from Central Otago District Council capital works programming manager Peter Greenwood about the matter and agreed to defer a decision until it had more information.
Mr Greenwood said Anderson Park and the college grounds, 21ha in total of adjoining land, had been irrigated with bore water for the past two summers.
The council had been told it was "relatively easy" to irrigate the park and the school grounds through a single irrigation bore and installed the bore to serve those areas, so they were no longer using the town supply.
There were problems with capacity and with the time it took to irrigate the whole area, he said.
No operations and maintenance agreement had been reached between the council and the school.
Options to remedy the problem included upgrading the pump capacity, at a cost of up to $54,000, or switching the college grounds back to the town supply water. He recommended the latter option.
The cost for the school to install its own bore for irrigation water would be about $108,000.
School board chairwoman Maxine Knowler said there were several things wrong in Mr Greenwood's report and she was "surprised" to see the recommendation about switching the grounds' irrigation water back to the town supply.
"The college's real concern is that recommendation that we be cut off from the bore and reconnected to the town supply - that would cost us about $25,000 a year [in water charges]."
The school did not want to "shirk its responsibilities" and was prepared to pay power costs, a share of repairs and maintenance and consider contributing to an upgrade of the pump.
An estimated price of $108,000 for the school to gain its own water bore made it an "unattractive" option.
The school wanted time to consider its options before any decision was made.
Board member Gordon Stewart said the board had been "pretty generous" allowing the school to avoid a $25,000 water bill for two years.
