Omakau and Ophir residents have endured long-term water issues, as the supply to the towns is sourced from the flood-prone Manuherikia River.
For 40 days, after heavy flooding in July last year, Omakau and Ophir residents had to boil their water.
At last week's Central Otago District Council three waters infrastructure committee meeting, chairman and councillor Malcolm Topliss said a drinkable water treatment system housed in shipping containers had arrived in Alexandra and would be installed over the next two to three weeks to treat the existing water supply from the Manuherikia.
Mr Topliss said the council hired the containers and they would be in use until the new water supply was finalised. He hoped that would be in about a year.
``That gives us breathing space until we can get this new water supply finalised.''
In preparation for the new water supply, Mr Topliss said the district council received resource consent from the Otago Regional Council to drill a second test bore at Mawhinney Rd to make sure the supply would be adequate.
``We've got to make sure before we start putting in a pipeline for about 6km between Mawhinney Rd and Omakau that we are absolutely confident that the water supply from the source is going to have the quality and the volume required.
``We've already done the test of one bore and it looks good, but we've got to do this at different times of the year . . . by the time we sort this out and make a decision it's going to take quite a few months to get a new water supply installed.''
The council had to put in a new treatment facility before the new water supply was operational but design of the facility had yet to be finalised, he said.
The drilling of the second test bore would start on April 20.
Council infrastructure services executive manager Julie Muir said the first bore tested was an existing bore that was installed in 2012.
She said drilling groundwater bores at the Mawhinney Rd site was the most cost effective option for the new water source.
The other two options - bores beside the Manuherikia River and groundwater bores near Thompsons Gorge - were less cost effective.
Ms Muir could not give an end date for the project, as they had to be certain the Mawhinney Rd source was of a good quality and volume before a time frame was confirmed.
