The City of Revelstoke is stepping up its enforcement of water restrictions due to the dry weather and high fire risk in the community.
“I think Greeley still has a good supply of water as a water source, but it’s more how we refill our reservoirs,” Mike Thomas, the city’s director of engineering, told the Review. “Why I’m concerned is we have quite a high fire danger in town so we need to make sure we have water in our reservoirs so we have water to fight these fires.”
City regulations allow people to water their lawns and wash their driveways every second day from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Because of the hot, dry weather, many people have taken to watering their lawns in the evening so the water doesn’t evaporate right away. Watering by hand is allowed at any time.
“We want to have full reservoirs by 6 a.m., which is when people actually start watering,” said Thomas. “What’s happening is we’re not getting our reservoirs full.”
He stressed the city isn’t running out of water from Greely Creek, but it needed to be able to fill its reservoirs at night, and with people watering their lawns in the evening, that was proving a challenge.
The city says they have given out warnings and will now start ticketing people who contravene the bylaw.
The city warned that if water usage doesn’t decrease, stage two restrictions would be implemented, meaning only hand watering of plants would be allowed.
“I think the risk is real of interface fires or a fire within the city limits that could cause of problems and I want to make sure we’re providing the fire fighting resources so they can fight the fire with the appropriate amount of water,” said Thomas.
