The City of Kamloops says new water restrictions that were put in place this week could either be eased or tightened further on Monday.
Utility Services Manager Greg Wightman says it will depend on how much of a reduction there was in water use, noting that data won’t be available until next week.
Under the new restrictions, outdoor lawn watering with a sprinkler is no longer allowed, but a spring-loaded nozzle is still good. Commercial pressure and personal vehicle washing are also off-the-table for now.
Wightman says the goal of these restrictions is to reduce water use by 25 per cent as both the North and South Thompson Rivers have been at Drought Level 5 since Aug. 3.
“If by chance we see that, ‘hey, these restrictions resulted in a 35 per cent reduction in water use,’ we might be able to relax some of the restrictions,” Wightman told City Council.
“If we don’t achieve that 25 per cent reduction, we may have to look at even more drastic measures because even at 25 we’re not hitting the provinces ask right now of 30.”
He told council that the province has sent letters to the largest users of water in the North Thompson and the South Thompson asking for a 30 to 50 per cent reduction in use, the City set its target at 25 per cent.
“What the province hasn’t done is move to enforcement at this point,” Wightman added.
“What that looks like is they could go to water licensees and they do it by when you got given that water licence. They’ll start at the newest and work to the oldest and they’ll say, ‘you now have only half the capacity that you had before. Right now, its you need to do everything you can to restrict use.'”
Wightman says the City has also moved from education to enforcement, with fines of as much as $100 a day possible. So far though, no fines have been issued, as he says there has been “strong compliance” towards these new restrictions.
“We did see a 13 per cent reduction from two weeks ago to last week when we started to talk about the drought restrictions so we have seen the community respond and we hope that continues,” he added.
“The concern right now is not the South and North Thompson rivers going dry. The concern is conserving every drop of water we can for the environment.”
He also reiterated that the knows the restrictions “are not prefect”, adding the City’s drought response team will review and make improvements where needed.
“We’ve heard a lot about drip irrigation and the ability that provides people to maintain trees, shrubs, edible plants,” Wightman said, noting the City has fielded questions from a number of residents asking what they can and cannot do.
“One of the answers we’ve been giving is we don’t know. We don’t,” he added. “When we developed this, we didn’t say it was going to be perfect or it wasn’t going to be without problems because we are treating this like an emergency, and we are working in emergency management principles.”
“This is week one, its not even year one. Its not perfect, we understand there are some frustrations and we will strive to make it better.”
For more on drought information in the City of Kamloops and water conservation, go here.
