Bendigo Station Ltd has been granted consent for a water intake structure on the Clutha River to service a planned 198ha irrigation scheme.
The Central Otago District Council's hearings panel imposed nine conditions, restricting the amount of vegetation clearance and ensuring power cables and parts of the intake structure be located underground.
The company planned to take water from the river about 5km north of Maori Point to irrigate almost 200ha of land within Long Gully Station, off State Highway 8A northwest of Tarras.
Speaking on behalf of the applicant at a meeting of the CODC hearings panel in Alexandra last month, survey consultant Peter Dymock said the granting of other consents for the project by the Otago Regional Council was "imminent".
The company obtained ORC consent to extract water from the Clutha, and had applied to the council to shift the point of take, discharge silt into the river, and place a structure on, as well as disturb, the river bed.
