Thompson River (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

DROUGHT CONCERNS

Newly proposed Kamloops drought response plan makes watering restrictions year-round

Feb 27, 2024 | 5:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — Year over year, prolonged drought has the City of Kamloops updating its drought response plan to better align with the province and ensure the water conservation effort becomes a year-round initiative.

“The drought response plan that we are presenting to council today, that is one of the recommendations, is that restrictions will be in place year-round,” said Utility Services Manager Greg Wightman, speaking to Kamloops council Tuesday (Feb. 27). “We are seeing spring start a lot earlier and warmer weather earlier. We are also seeing September as a prime example of a month when it’s staying warmer and people are irrigating right through until the end of September. Restrictions will be in place year-round with this plan we are presenting to council today.”

The biggest change for residents is going away from the former even-odd watering days for addresses, allowing the city more flexibility within the restrictions to ease watering down slower.

“We are going to be going to three-days-a-week watering day now, will kind of be the standard restrictions,” stated Wightman. “But, it does allow us to go down to one-day-per-week and then zero as opposed to last year when we had to go from even day, odd day to nothing. It is a bit more of a phased approach. It will allow people to, hopefully, continue watering a little longer than they were last year, but still meet the environmental goals of the plan.”

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As Kamloops looks ahead to the summer, current indications from the BC River Forecast Centre back up the drought concerns.

“To have a drought year heading into the winter and then a very low snowpack could be something we haven’t really seen before,” said Hydrologist Jonathan Boyd.

What’s worrying the agency is the possibility of an early melt.

“What it means is that the source of water supply that we have coming down in the late spring or even into the summer gets used up, essentially, early on,” added Boyd. “And then we rely on just the ground water recharge for rivers or the potential rain in the spring or summer.”

Wightman noted that the community will need to come to grips with a new mentality around summer landscape and watering.

“This is going to be a major shift in the mindset of this community,” noted Wightman. “We saw a great response last year from the restrictions we put in place. We had a 58 per cent reduction in water last year — we saved 1.4 billion litres. The community really responded and rallied around. That is one of the key concepts — keeping a green lawn in August, in Kamloops, in the desert is not something that is going to be practical anymore.”

If the new plan is adopted by council, the city will be working on a communication plan to outline the new restrictions.

Council will vote on amendments to necessary bylaws to change the drought plan at a future meeting.