West Kelowna Council is planning to revamp penalties for ignoring water regulations.
Council carried a motion unanimously at the June 9th council meeting that will have district staff develop a bylaw allowing the municipality to issue fines for offenders of sprinkling regulations. Currently, West Kelowna only has one option; to cut off water if warnings are being ignored. Mayor Doug Findlater said the water districts were brought in under their control three years ago, and while the municipality has never cut off someone’s water, he has heard of it happening under water district authority.
While there is no current timeframe for the bylaw, Findlater is hopeful it will come before council at one of the next two meetings. Despite being in stage one of water regulations (where residents with even house numbers can water on even calendar dates, and the opposite for uneven house numbers) Findlater explained there is a fairly common misuse of sprinkling regulations in the community.
Findlater added West Kelowna staff are monitoring the reservoir levels, and moving to stage two (which would limit residents to watering twice a week) is not yet on their radar.
