Tarras Water Ltd director Peter Jolly yesterday said the first hurdle for the project was cleared, but the water company needed a financial package to take back to the 40 or 50 stakeholders.
"That's still some time away, but once we've sorted out the figures, then we'll say, `This is what it's going to cost', and then it's tough-decision time."
Mr Jolly yesterday met a delegation at Tarras from Irrigation New Zealand (INZ). The group is a national organisation representing all irrigation interests. INZ staff and board members have been touring Otago for three days, meeting authorities and irrigation companies.
"Tarras is a district in decline and our best shot at arresting that is with water," Mr Jolly told the INZ group.
Without some form of "outside assistance", the scheme was unlikely to proceed, he said.
"The reality is we need some form of financial assistance to get it under way. It will be a bridge too far for the local community to do this on their own."
INZ chairman Graeme Sutton, of Nelson, said it was critical for the Government to recognise that supporting new irrigation schemes by offering cheap loans, for example, would increase productivity of the land and allow money to flow to investments.
"Support for irrigation schemes is a long-term investment, just like the hydro-electric dams were," he said.
"Every New Zealander, even the Aucklanders drinking their lattes, benefit from the foresight of the people who put the hydro dams like Roxburgh in place."
"Every new irrigation scheme needs to have a champion, and the Tarras scheme's champion is the man who's been talking to us today. Someone with the passion and vision to see the scheme through," Mr Sutton said.
Mr Jolly said when the Tarras scheme was operational, the traditional land uses of beef and sheep farming in the district might be joined by high-risk, high-return ventures such as cherry, apricot and nectarine orchards.
In January, the Otago Regional Council granted the Tarras organisation consents to take water from the Clutha for the scheme. It has the potential to irrigate 9000ha of land and the water would be used for irrigation, domestic and stock water, firefighting and frost-fighting.
