Otago Regional Council strategy manager Anne Duncan said three tenders were received for the upcoming evaluation last week, each had been reviewed, and the contract was due to be awarded today.
The council would then discuss with the successful tenderer how the project would progress, Dr Duncan said.
The council called this month for bids to do a stocktake of the state of knowledge of Otago lakes, their management, and a review of what work might be required in consultation with stakeholders.
The project is designed to either confirm the need for an Otago lakes strategy, or instead other opportunities for what could enhance management of lakes in the region.
A lakes management strategy was a project initiated by Cr Michael Laws during deliberations on the council’s long-term plan in May last year.
At the time, councillors added $200,000 to the organisation’s budgets for two years of work on the project.
Later, staff indicated there had been "variable feedback" from stakeholders about the project’s merits, but nevertheless, in November councillors pushed forward unanimously.
Recently, Guardians of Lake Wanaka chairman Don Robertson appealed for action at a public forum.
Community efforts to lessen pollution in Otago lakes could only go so far without measuring what was actually happening in them, Dr Robertson said.
"For around 150 years the Otago deepwater alpine lakes have been taken for granted in terms of their ecosystem health.
"And in the meantime over that period we have had hugely increased human activities, changes in land use and the lake water quality is now apparently declining in the absence of any evidence-based management." Cr Laws said. Dr Robertson was "preaching to the converted", but nevertheless thanked him.
Most of what Dr Robertson had raised would be part of the proposed lakes strategy, Cr Laws said.
However, he took his presentation to mean more urgency was required and further that Otago lakes that were the region’s "jewels in the Crown" should be made a priority.
