Dear Editor:
The current heat wave is stressing our crops. It is critical that everyone also understand that it is stressing our water system.
Our water supply itself is in good shape. Where we are having trouble is in the operations side of the system. Our water treatment plant cannot treat all the water required during heat spells such as we are experiencing. It was never designed to do so. Our staff must open up the supplemental bypass line and publish a boil water notice.
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The District of Summerland arbitrarily turning off irrigation connections is totally wrong. And doing it without informing the operator is not acceptable. The planned solution to high flow demand is to operate the supplemental bypass line.
Our irrigators must review the fundamental rules for accessing irrigation water, with 7.2 U.S. gals per minute per acre as the absolute maximum that any property is allowed to run at one time.
It is important that only the number of gallons per minute, multiplied by the number of acres on roll, is operated at any one time. Everyone needs this water. This is the fairest way that we have to share this life-giving resource.
Our water comes to us through pipes under the roads that have limited capacity. The engineers have designed the system to supply adequate flow and pressure to all properties on the roll. If the maximum gallons per minute per acre is exceeded, then another property will not be able to access their fair share of water with adequate flow and pressure.
Our annual water allocation is 800 millimetres. Our meters are read monthly and the readings posted to the District of Summerland website. https://www.summerland.ca/docs/default-source/default-document-library/may-2021-website-upload_sorted.pdf?sfvrsn=f236f1fb_0
You will need your meter number and a magnifying glass to read the numbers but that is a way of tracking your consumption so that you do not exceed your allocation for the irrigation season as a whole and receive a financial penalty.
The best way of ensuring that you irrigate effectively is to get a good design for your system and operate it within the 7.2 US gallons per minute per acre limit.
Lorraine Bennest
Summerland
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