Meanwhile, the council representative on the Manuherikia reference group called it "amazing" the crucial report had yet to be made available to councillors.
Next month will mark a year since the Manuherikia technical advisory group (Tag) report was originally supposed to be presented to the council.
Once complete, the report is expected to confirm what effect different irrigation-season minimum-flow settings would have on the health of the river.
It will be used by councillors to decide at what point water users must stop taking water from the river when the flow drops.
The report was called for by a majority of councillors at a council meeting on August 25, 2021, when staff were recommending flow regimes for the river.
Councillors voted against noting minimum flows at the time.
Instead, councillors thanked council staff, iwi consultancy Aukaha and the community for their work to date on the issue and then called on Tag to complete "the required science" before moving ahead.
Cr Kevin Malcolm last week said it was "amazing" the report was still not available.
"Perhaps people will understand our reluctance to sign off flow regimes when even the experts are struggling to complete their process," Cr Malcolm said.
Last month, in an op-ed in the Otago Daily Times, Cr Malcolm said he had been chasing the "crucial advice" since August 2020.
He went on to say former council chief executive Sarah Gardner and the former policy and science general manager Gwyneth Elsum told him, in February 2021, the advice was complete, apart from the Tag sign-off, and that only the night before the meeting he found out that was not the case.
"I encouraged councillors to vote against setting a flow regime at our meeting August 25, 2021.
"Why did I do that? Quite simple. At 10pm on August 24 I received an email from the ORC head of science confirming that the Tag report had not been completed."
This week, interim chief executive Pim Borren said the council’s science team had received an early draft of the consultant’s report, and provided feedback.
"We are expecting the final hydrological report by the end of this week.
"This will contain information that will then inform a report and recommendation that will go to the Tag group in April."
Policy and science general manager Anita Dawe said Tag members would discuss "points of agreement and points of divergence" around flow levels and ecological impacts on the Manuherikia River and its tributaries.
Once Tag had concluded, the council would do three things.
First, staff would hold a council workshop on the process Tag went through in developing its recommendations.
Second, staff would deliver a report outlining flow management options, the associated ecological risk and benefits of those options and recommendations for river management.
The third step was to pass the recommendations on to council policy staff who would then consider the Tag recommendations alongside cultural, economic and social considerations within the framework of the national policy statement on freshwater management.
Cr Malcolm said the proposed process was sound but it would need "the people involved [to] fully consider what the river does naturally and the community needs".
The Otago Daily Times invited comment from all councillors.
Cr Michael Laws said the report was "not a court judgement".
"It’s one piece of evidence to place alongside a number of other policy inputs.
"Then the elected councillors weigh all the information and exercise their collective judgement.
"Uppermost in my mind will be that the decision that we make will affect the lives and livelihoods of literally hundreds of people.
