In a rare example of plans and interests coinciding, the Otago Regional Council, Queenstown Lakes District Council, the Queenstown Airport Corporation and the New Zealand Transport Agency are working together in an ambitious project which will literally change the shape of the river.
The delta is "a little precinct with huge pressure" and it was vital for all parties to ensure it was dealt with appropriately, QLDC chief executive officer Duncan Field said.
The part of the delta where the Shotover merges with the Kawarau River is dominated by three willow-covered islands which are trapping shingle and silt.
Lakes Environmental received three resource consent applications last week from ORC to remove the islands and construct a training arm - a 700m-long flood bank - to encourage the river to head westward at its confluence with the Kawarau River.
At a press conference yesterday, Mr Field and ORC environmental engineering and natural hazards director Gavin Palmer said the work would provide some level of flood mitigation for Queenstown.
While Mr Field warned it was not a "one-shot answer for Queenstown's [flood] problems", he said the work would mitigate "more extreme situations".
That meant that while flooding at the level seen in 1999 was still a possibility, having the arm would stop silt in the Shotover River plugging up the Kawarau and preventing flood water from draining away, creating a worse scenario.
"Training" the river westward would also better enable the Shotover to return to its historic braided form, Dr Palmer said.
Work clearing the islands of the invasive willow has already begun with a poisoning programme, and the bulk of the work would be done in the winter of 2010.
While it would be seen, in the wider context of the landscape, the arm would have "little visual impact" once completed, Dr Palmer believed.
The 1,200,000cu m of gravel extracted by the ORC will be used to construct both the arm and QAC's runway extension safety area, which is now a requirement for international airports.
Despite there already being an application for shingle extraction for the RESA, Dr Palmer said it was a contingency plan because QAC was on a tight timeframe.
Another major project, QLDC's Project Shotover, aims to upgrade Queenstown's sewage treatment facilities to dispose of treated water on land rather than into the river.
The $40 million project - to be funded from the sewerage rate - will also require shingle to reinforce the area, which will be sourced from the ORC's shingle extraction.
In conjunction with the sewerage treatment work, QLDC is working with the New Zealand Transport Agency to upgrade the area which will form an entrance to Queenstown and secure a corridor for a potential state highway bypass of Frankton at some point over the next 30 years.
As the entrance to Queenstown, the area had to be "high quality", Mr Field said.
While he expected details to change once submissions had been scrutinised, the plan was to make the area "more accessible and inviting", he said.
That included a sealed road-way and car park leading to a recreational reserve planted in native trees and shrubs.
"There will be manuka and kanuka, [other] tree species, trails . . . and fishermen's access [to the river]," he said.
"We want to change it from a place were people abandon old cars and fridges."
The Otago Regional Council resource consent applications have been notified today - people will have 20 days to make submissions on its plans.
