A member of the group, who preferred not to be named, told the Otago Daily Times this week establishing a trust would enable money to be raised to have the work done.
While taking no responsibility for the signs that have gone up around Wanaka aimed at the dairy industry, the group member acknowledged the trust idea was sparked by two public meetings on water quality recently and it was likely the idea for the signs had the same origin.
The meetings were organised by the Wanaka branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand and each was attended by about 200 people.
Branch president Dr Graeme Ballantyne, of Lake Hawea, said he preferred the society ''remain neutral'' and he was not a member of the group considering the trust.
However, those who were had the time and expertise to set it up and were ''interested in the whole issue of the consequences of dairying in the area''.
''There are a lot of concerns about that.''
The feeling in the society was there was ''no good baseline data saying what the state of our lakes and our water is at the moment''.
The Lake Wanaka Guardians group has been pushing for a $65,000 monitoring buoy to be set up in Lake Wanaka to provide data on temperature, clarity, oxygen level, acidity and algal content of the lake water.
Dr Ballantyne said the guardians group was focused on lakes and ''of course the lakes are not the major problem''.
''It's downstream, and it's not far downstream.''
While farming practices in the high country around the lakes had not changed much over the years, elsewhere in the Upper Clutha dairy cows had increased from almost none 30 years ago to more than 20,000 now, he said.
The Otago Regional Council began promoting and explaining its new water quality rules with a stakeholders' forum in Dunedin yesterday. Workshops are planned for Wanaka and Roxburgh on July 1 and Tarras, Omakau and Ranfurly on July 2.
