Southern Alberta drought putting pressure on residential water supply

The drought in southern Alberta has triggered a water restriction for the Town of Claresholm, the Hamlet of Granum, and the entire M.D. of Willow Creek.

“This is the first time that we’ve had to use water restrictions. The lowest the level has been in many years,” said Abe Tinney, CAO for the Town of Claresholm.

Pine Coulee Reservoir supplies water to those areas and has fed Willow Creek for around 25 years.

“The big contributing factor to the lowering levels are the releases into the creek to maintain those flows in the creek,” said Tinney.

The area is under a Stage 2 water shortage response plan, meaning, depending on your address and the activity you use the water for:

• Watering days are reduced from three to two days a week;
• No watering between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.
• No permits will be issued for new landscaping seeding or sod until Sept. 1.

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Tinney explains a simulation on water levels and precipitation patterns that looked at more than 77 years used to develop this plan predicted this situation would happen every seven to 10 years.

“According to those projections, I would say it’s not alarming as it might seem if you just consider these restrictions right now in this small window without looking at how long it’s been since we’ve actually had to enact them,” said Tinney. “There’s still lots of water in there to carry us through well into next year.”

The current level of the reservoir is 1,046 metres. The water would have to drop to 1,040 metres to trigger tighter restrictions and a move to Stage 3, where those releases into the creek stop and water is then conserved for municipal consumption purposes.

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Moving south, Luke Palmer, Lethbridge emergency planning and risk supervisor, said the city has received less than 40 per cent of its normal precipitation, adding the drought conditions can be seen across a much wider area.

“We’ve actually been in a drought for roughly three to four years at this point,” said Palmer. “It’s consumed about 50 per cent of the south region, stretching from Red Deer to Medicine Hat, while it’s impacting Lethbridge, this is really an entire south region issue at this point,” said Palmer.

The city is on standby to activate any water restriction plans if it comes to that.

In the meantime, Tinney feels alright about the plan for Claresholm.

“We’re doing our due diligence at this time and feeling confident that things are going to be okay.”

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