With persistent dry conditions come more stringent lawn watering restrictions.
Metro Vancouver announced Friday that sprinkling — which does not include flower and vegetable gardens — will now be restricted to once a week.
Homeowners with even-numbered addresses may sprinkle lawns only Monday mornings from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m., while odd-numbered addresses will have a turn on Thursday mornings during the same hours. Washing cars or boats using a spring-loaded shutoff nozzle is still permitted.
Water reservoirs, which include the Seymour, Capilano and Coquitlam, are currently 79 per cent full — water levels that are normally seen in early August. Creeks that flow into the reservoirs are also at lower-than-normal levels.
In addition to scaled-back sprinkling, as part of moving to Stage 2 watering restrictions all public and commercial fountains and water features not using recycled water will be shut off.
Bylaw enforcement officers will be patrolling North Shore neighbourhoods to ensure residents are complying with the new rules.
“If everyone does their bit to actively reduce their level of consumption by watering less, letting their grass go brown, not washing their cars, perhaps the water levels will stabilize for the remaining summer months,” said City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto, who is also chair of Metro’s utilities committee.
Mussatto anticipates Stage 2 restrictions will stay in effect until the end of September and may even escalate. “If we have to go to Stage 3 we will, which is more severe water restrictions but hopefully we won’t have to,” he said.
In August 2003, a region-wide sprinkling ban was put in place due to dry conditions and low water levels in the local reservoirs.
Note: this story has been modified since first posted.
