Scorching temperatures and recent dry weather has put pressure on Okotoks’ water supplies, leading the Town to ask residents to reduce water use.
“Just to keep an eye on it and be a little more conscious about additional use,” said Chris Radford, Okotoks infrastructure and operations director.
Water use by residents and businesses in Okotoks typically runs around seven million litres per day, but it doubled between July 3 to 8.
“Our highest day was 15.5 million,” said Radford.
During that period, water use exceeded the Town’s production capacity of about 12 million litres of water per day from its wells and brought down levels in the Town’s reservoirs.
“The simple math is with 15 million minus 12 million, is three million coming out of the reserves on consecutive days,” he said.
Radford said the situation hasn’t reached the point where the Town feels it needs to implement any outdoor watering restrictions and rainfall last week helped.
“What I think we’re trying to do here is we’re monitoring it, managing it and we’re reminding residents to be a bit more conscious of it,” said Radford.
With forecasts for a hot, dry summer, the Town is asking residents to do their part to keep an eye on water use.
“We just continue to want to reinforce and acknowledge that residents are watering on their permitted watering days and that we can see that, that people are adhering to it as best they can.”
The Town of Okotoks is asking residents to limit their outdoor watering on designated days and help cut back on water use where possible.
Homeowners can only water outdoor two days each week, between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. Homes with odd number addresses are permitted to water on Thursdays and Sundays. Homes with even number addresses can water on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
People are encouraged to limit their outdoor watering to no more than one hour during scheduled days and times. Anyone with automated irrigation systems is asked to program their systems to switch on between 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. on scheduled watering days.
People can also hand water flowerbeds and vegetable gardens at any time with either a container or hose with a manual nozzle.
People are asked to avoid unnecessary outdoor water use, such as washing vehicles or refilling hot tubs or pools and to program dishwashers and washing machines to run at non-peak times during the night.
The Town is taking steps to bring down its own water use by reducing irrigation in its parks and sports fields.
The Town will only water high-use sports fields and recently sodded areas one day a week. It is also watering newly planted trees using non-potable water.
“In any non-essential parks, there’s basically no watering,” he said. “We’re monitoring and managing the water in our high profile playing fields as well.”
