Water restrictions are coming into place across the Cowichan Valley Regional District next week.
Starting May 1st, all water systems across the valley will be moving to stage one restrictions.
That regulates lawn sprinklers, hand watering, and micro drip irrigation. Other outdoor water uses like filling pools and washing vehicles or houses are not restricted yet.
Stage one restrictions go into place seasonally from the beginning of May until the end of October and increased as needed through the summer.
It’s in an effort to conserve water use on residential properties and ensure aquifers and lakes can withstand what they call the “increasingly dry summers.”
The district says that record low precipitation forced the creation and implementation of stage four restrictions last summer, and needing to implement that again is not out of the question for 2023.
CVRD’s Manager of Utility Operations, Todd Etherington says, “Based on feedback from residents and the business community, and the likelihood of needing to implement this heightened stage of restrictions again this summer, we’ve made several changes to Stage 4 for 2023.”
Those changes prohibit all outdoor uses of potable water, with the exception of two-hour daily maximums for hand-watering and micro-drip irrigation of vegetable gardens and fruit trees, and one-hour daily limits for ornamental trees, shrubs, and flower gardens.
The specifics of water restriction stages one through four can be found on the CVRD’s water website.
