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By Michael Reeve

DROUGHT CONCERNS

‘Brown is beautiful’; Severe drought means time to let lawns go dormant

Jul 26, 2023 | 4:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — With the summer not even at the half-way point yet, the City of Kamloops is sitting at Level 4 drought, on a scale which tops out at 5. Level 4 is listed as ‘adverse impacts to socio-economic or ecosystems values are likely.’

If and when the city moves to drought Level 5, hand-watering will become the only option for Kamloops residents looking to keep their flowers and plants thriving through the hot summer.

“In Stage 1 (of drought Level 5) we are going to ban irrigating through anything other than a handheld, spring-loaded nozzle,” said Greg Wightman, City of Kamloops Utility Services Manager. “And that was done after hearing back from the community and council, and wanting to give people a way to keep gardens alive. We understand the importance of food security. That will allow people to do that. It’s not as effective, it will take longer but it at least allows that. And we will be striving for an overall 25 per cent reduction in overall city water use.”

As the calendar moves toward August, the city is preparing for uncharted drought territory and the likely move to Level 5 for the first time.

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“(In Stage 2 of Level 5), we will progress to things like banning vehicle- and boat-washing, pressure-washing and even looking at some internal city processes like fire hydrant testing which obviously requires a lot of water and an important safety process we do, but just further restrictions to try and get to that 25 per cent reduction,” said Wightman.

Outside of city limits, the TNRD operates 11 community water systems, but the vast majority of electoral area residents utilize ground water sources which have restrictions imposed by the province.

“For the areas where we do have community water systems, we are on seasonal restrictions for watering and we are prepared for potential increases if needed. Right now, at this moment, we are not looking at that, but we would communicate that with affected customers in those community water systems as needed,” added TNRD Communications Manager Colton Davies.

Davies noted that one of the biggest community water users in the TNRD has already begun voluntary conservation.

While the region has seen small blips of precipitation, it hasn’t been enough to change conditions.

“The rain that we have been getting in the past couple of weeks has been very intense, short-duration rainfall, that has comes in 20-minute spans and it has been very spotty as well. Going back a couple of weeks, we had flooding on Notre Dame (Drive) but we got 2.6 millimetres at the airport. Really spotty on where it’s hitting and its having very little impact on the river levels,” said Wightman.

With the river low, and no relief in sight, Wightman stated this may be time to take a lesson from the coast.

“We have certainly been accustomed in Kamloops, despite our semi-arid, almost desert-like conditions, to having green lawns throughout summer. You only have to look at the Lower Mainland where they do have these sorts of water restrictions on a regular basis. ‘Brown is beautiful’ is the term down there when it comes to lawns, and that is something we will have to start to understand and live with here in Kamloops,” said Wightman.