The Waitaki District Council project to deliver Oamaru drinking water to communities in Herbert, Waianakarua, Hampden and Moeraki, to meet government standards, was already under way and "a section" of the roughly 30km pipeline from Oamaru to Hampden was installed, council water services and waste manager Martin Pacey said.
Land surveying and design was largely complete and landowners in the area ‘‘fully support’’ the project, which was expected to be complete by the end of next year, Mr Pacey said.
"Most landowners just require information to understand what impacts there will be on them. Each landowner discussion is unique and we have worked hard to accommodate any concerns," he said in an email.
"Landowners have been great and fully support the community project. We are working with a small number of landowners to obtain final access agreements."
The council did not respond to further questions concerning how much of the pipeline was already installed, nor how many land access agreements were still to be obtained. However, in his report to the council last month, Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher expressed concern that in fact not all landowners in the area supported the council project.
"It [the pipeline] will make a big difference to the water quality, quantity and reliability, but sadly not all landowners see it quite the same way. The project team have been involved in numerous discussions with the landowners. I have been involved a little bit, and it is interesting to see some of the reasons why people don’t want to allow access, or what they want before they do allow it."
Speaking to the Otago Daily Times this week he clarified his concerns.
"It’s their land and it’s their prerogative," Mr Kircher said.
"They might have fibre go through their property. They might have powerlines, or various things go through their property. They might have irrigation water, and so on, go through their property — perhaps even the previous water scheme pipelines going through. We [the council] are coming on the back of all of that. And if any of them — including the council itself — if we haven’t done a good job, or if any of those haven’t done a good job as they’ve gone through this private land, we, of course, bear the brunt of that.
"And so people quite reasonably want assurances that if they are going to allow a pipeline to go through that ... [it] is going to have as minimal an impact on them as possible."
This winter the council decided Oamaru water supply users would fund a loan of $2.4million through targeted rates to pay for the pipeline. The remaining costs would be funded through depreciation and growth reserves.The Kakanui and Weston-Enfield schemes have already been connected to Oamaru.
A council newsletter in April this year said the intention for the pipeline to cross private land "wherever possible" was designed to avoid construction along "the state highway corridor" and consequent higher costs for ratepayers.
Mr Pacey said about $400,000 had been spent on the project up until now and costs were expected to be on budget. The pipeline was planned to bring water to about 700 consumers between Herbert and Moeraki. After a public meeting in 2014, consumers on the Hampden-Moeraki and Herbert-Waianakarua schemes were surveyed on their preferred options for meeting government standards and, of the 192 surveys returned, 125 favoured connecting to Oamaru.
