The Clutha District Council initiated a test bore project at Greenfield near Clydevale as part of its long-term plan last year, and contractors completed testing late last month.
The results are due to be presented to councillors at a meeting on Thursday.
If they prove satisfactory, the eventual new scheme will provide water for about 1600 residents on three rural water schemes, and in Lawrence township.
Council service delivery group manager Jules Witt said the original cost estimate for the project was about $14.5million, although that could change following a tender process to carry out the work.
If approved, that would take place later this year, and it was hoped the scheme would be fully operational by 2025.
"We won’t know exactly what the timing will be until we work through the tender process, as contractor and pipe availability will be a key issue. At this stage we expect that the first customers will be connected during 2023," he said.
A second bore would supply additional water to the Clydevale/Pomahaka scheme to give it extra capacity, and redundancy if a bore pump outage occurred.
Both bores would supply stock water, as well as water for households.
The project would mean the number of resource consents associated with water abstraction and discharge would be reduced by six, he said.
Washingtons Exploration, of Timaru, had carried out the recent testing and would return at a later date to carry out pump tests.
Mr Witt said the district council was surveying prospective users at present.
"We’re assessing future demand, and that will inform overall design capacity for the new scheme."
The council will make its decision at its Rosebank chambers during its full, six-weekly meeting at 1.30pm Thursday.
