Options are still open for upgrading the water schemes serving the Hampden-Moeraki and Herbert-Waianakarua communities, the two committees which manage them say.
The Waitaki District Council last month decided to spend $4.9 million upgrading the schemes by building a pipeline to carry treated water
from Oamaru south to the two communities.
However, it also said it would consider other options from the two scheme committees and hold a workshop with them, their advisers, councillors and council staff to discuss upgrading.
Hampden-Moeraki scheme chairman Phillip Nicholson and his Herbert-Waianakarua counterpart, Ian Caldwell, said neither committee could support any particular option until further clarification was available.
The committees had investigated various options, and were concentrating on two - building water storage and treatment for both schemes or individual storage and treatment for each scheme.
They would use water from the north branch of the Waianakarua River for Herbert-Waianakarua and Big Kuri Creek for Hampden-Moeraki.
A spokesman for the two committee, Bruce Parker, who made a presentation at the April meeting before the council made the pipeline decision, said there had also been a lot of interest in a television programme that showed how Tokomaru, a similar size to Hampden, upgraded its water at a considerably lower cost than was proposed for the two Waitaki communities.
Mr Caldwell and Mr Nicholson said there had been considerable work on options over the past six months by the council and two committees.
The committees were continuing to work through some outstanding issues with the council, which would be discussed at a workshop next week.
The workshop would also address specific issues, including the cost and rates implications of both the Oamaru pipeline option and the alternative local storage solution.
''The committees have been working with their own consultants to ascertain the feasibility of a local storage option which could be a cheaper alternative to the proposed pipeline option, while still meeting the security of supply issues that the affect Hampden-Moeraki.''
A storage option allowed the local community to manage its own resources, and gave a lower cost of treatment, because clean water was being used, ways to overcome droughts and floods and provided for growth.
