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Water districts keeps fingers crossed for summer supply

It’s been a dry spring but thanks to the snow covered mountains that line the northern horizon the B.C lower mainland and Point Roberts are not likely to see a water pinch this summer – if users are careful.
“It’s not looking too bad for this time of year considering what we’ve been through,” said Paul Archibald, water systems manager for the Greater Vancouver Regional District. “We’re blessed with a great snowpack. This spring has been drier than normal and for the first time in some time we’ve relied on the snowpack to keep the reservoirs full or close to full. Our target is to have completely full reservoirs by June 1 and we’re doing great.”

Archibald said they anticipated reservoirs would begin to be drawn down in July, when the snow is melted and hot summer weather pushes up water use. “The entire region, including the miniscule amount used by Point Roberts, uses two billion liters a day on a good hot summer day,” Archibald said. “That’s twice the demand of a winter day.” He added the Point uses less than one tenth of one percent of GVRD water.
Point Roberts buys a set amount of 306.6 million gallons of water a year from the GVRD under a 50-year contract that started in 1987. In 1990 the water district paid $49,500 for that water and in 2000 they paid $142,500. In 1990 1,542 water consumers on the Point used 67.9 million gallons of the 306.6 they purchased. In 2000, 1824 customers used 80.5 million gallons. The Point is allowed under the contract to draw a maximum of 840,650 gallons a day, but while district manager Dan Bourks said they never get close to that number in winter, with a contract in place to sell excess water to the golf course for irrigation they can come close on a hot summer day.

Archibald said the member municipalities of the GVRD, most of which do not meter residential water use but charge an annual flat fee for unlimited use, will begin imposing watering restrictions June 1. The restrictions, which have been in place since 1993, limit sprinkling to mornings and evening, two days a week. If reservoirs draw down too much in the summer the GVRD may ask for a lawn-sprinkling ban. “What we would like people to do is cut down on cosmetic water use – lawns, fountains, spraying off the driveway.” Archibald said.

The watering restrictions north of the border will not be imposed in Point Roberts where water use is more tightly regulated by a meter at each home. Residential users on the Point pay $19 a month for 4,500 gallons of water. If they use more than that they pay an extra dollar for every 750 gallons they use. “If someone is paying a flat fee for an amount of water I don’t feel I can tell them they can’t use it,” said Bourks. GVRD representative Sheila Gardner-Grant said water metering was a good way to keep water use under control. “People know what they’re using and what it costs,” she said. “That’s the way we’d like to head.

Bourks said the local water district was not imposing restrictions but was asking the public to look carefully at their water use, and come into the district office if they were interested in ways to save water.

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