Water use ban relaxed for now

The public is reminded that, as of last Wednesday, the town has relaxed the previously-announced water restriction for the month of June, and will review it again in July once the hotter, drier weather is expected to arrive.
“When we first came out with the water restrictions, we weren’t sure if people were going to abide by it,” Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown admitted at Monday night’s council meeting.
“We’re very pleased that the community’s abided by the restriction,” he added.
As a result, the town adjusted the processes at the water treatment plant to allow for a modified odd/even day system, where water customers are allowed to water their vegetable gardens, flower gardens, and shrubs for a four-hour period from 5-9 p.m., Brown noted.
For the time being, however, customers will not be permitted to use water for lawn care, washing vehicles, and filling swimming pools.
This modification to the watering restriction could be terminated at any time.
Brown said the town will provide an update on the modified water restriction during the first week in July as the town approaches the traditionally high demand period for water and the driest period of the summer.
“We just want to be sure the [treatment] plant can keep up and we don’t have any problems with the plant,” he stressed. “Hopefully, we can continue to have this four-hour window available.”
Brown said he’s interested to find out what water usage might be like during a hot, dry day—something which he hasn’t had a chance to do since the water restriction came into effect in late May due to repair work on the water tower.
Brown said the water treatment plant has been running at around 50 litres/second, though it has the capacity to go up to 196 litres/second.
The high demand last July was 120 litres/second.
“We’re on top of it. We want to work with everyone, but we’ve got to make sure we have a supply of water for fire protection,” he noted, adding until the town gets some hot days, the water restriction can’t be loosened any more than it is.