A cruise down any of our North Shore streets at this point of the summer should give you a pretty good idea who is still watering their lawn, and who isn’t.
We don’t want to instigate a witch-hunt, but don’t be shy about reminding your neighbours with lush lawns that we’re trudging toward a water crisis.
And we wouldn’t mind seeing our bylaw officers out with ticket books, for that matter.
To be clear, under Metro Vancouver’s current Stage 2 watering restrictions, you can still use your sprinkler from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Mondays for even-numbered addresses, 4 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Thursdays for odd-numbered addresses.
But we think you should leave the hose coiled up in the garage.
According to Metro, one hour of lawn sprinkling uses as much water as 25 toilet flushes, five loads of laundry and five dishwasher loads — combined.
While having the greenest lawn may be a point of pride on your leafy boulevard, we assure you it’s less important than having a steady supply of drinking water or enough pressure in the hydrants to put out fires, which, by the way, are happening far more often than they should.
By letting your lawn go brown, you could be helping us put off going to Level 3, which brings with it plenty of new restrictions.
Things are going to get worse before they get better.
Even with that tease of rain we had last weekend, our reservoirs are still way below where they should be for this time of year and the forecast remains drier than a British soap opera.
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