The Southern District Health Board is backing the Central Otago District Council’s proposed Clyde sewerage and wastewater scheme in what comes as a bitter blow to opponents of the plan.
Health board general manager facilities and property Paul Pugh said the board recognised it was a necessary part of the upgrade to the reticulation of Clyde.
"This latest consultation process is around the reclassification of land and wouldn’t be one that we would normally submit on," he said.
The proposed pump station was about 150m from the edge of the boundary to any of the buildings and 200m from the main block of the hospital, Mr Pugh said.
Given very little separation of such pumping stations from residential areas was normally acceptable, the chosen site seemed to be well-located, he said.
A possible concern of the health board might be around any future expansion and development of Dunstan Hospital and the potential for it to be closer to the site.
Other possible issues might be noise and odour, but the site design included odour filters and the council had said "any odour from the site would be very minor", Mr Pugh said.
The health board was involved in the previous public consultation process, had applied to be connected to the scheme and the council was working through options with its engineers, in consultation with the board’s building and property team, Mr Pugh said.
"This is early days yet in terms of the design but we have taken into account the feedback from the council’s website for guidance as to what to expect, as well as conversations in the past month or so.
"We will work with Central Otago Health Services to improve the wastewater flow from our site, including our own infrastructure changes to enable this to happen."
That is cold comfort to Dunstan Golf Club, which holds the lease for the part of the Clyde reserve earmarked for the pumping station.
Dunstan Golf Club lease committee spokesman Greg Rabbitt said he believed the health board had little understanding of the implications of the plan and had "believed council propaganda".
Central Otago Health Services chief executive Kathy de Luc said the organisation, which runs the hospital, would be meeting the council today and would make a decision on whether to make its own submission after that.
