(Image Credit: CFJC News)

By Sydney Chisholm

DROUGHT CONCERNS

City staff talk reduced water usage, weather station, irrigation

Mar 25, 2024 | 6:30 PM

KAMLOOPS– Dealing with extreme weather is nothing new for City of Kamloops parks and facilities manager Jeff Putnam.

However, after last year’s extreme drought conditions, he said city staff are looking for new ways to reduce water use in Kamloops parks, while still having aesthetic and useable spaces.

“For example, we have our own weather station and that weather station communicates with all our sports fields and quite a few park areas, like Riverside Park,” Putnam said.

Depending on humidity levels and temperature, the weather stations will automatically reduce irrigation demand in specific areas.

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Putnam said this is especially important for sports fields.

“If we lose sports fields, it’s millions of dollars of lost infrastructure,” he said. “So we have to provide a little bit more water for the sports fields.”

According to Greg Whiteman, city utility services manager, a phased irrigation reduction plan is now in place and will ensure more effective use of water this summer.

“The challenge we have with our irrigation systems is we’ve got over 200 of them, so that you can’t just change them in a day,” Whiteman said.

“It obviously takes a while and a lot of our systems weren’t set up in a way that we can still continue to water things like trees but not water grass.”

Every city irrigation system now has a plan that will reduce running time.

“And we’ve had conversations, as well, with Thompson Rivers University and School District 73, just to see if they can follow a very similar kind of principle,” Whiteman said.

“I know the public does get concerned when they see city irrigation running when they’re not able to water, but that’s the rationale, is we really just don’t have the control that private homes will have.”

Going forward, Putnam says water reduction is top of mind

“We’re using drip irrigation more and more now,” Putnam said.

“When we add new horticultural spaces, we generally tend towards xeriscape principles.”