The City of Prince George isn’t in a rush to install further water usage restrictions heading into the summer on what could be another long wildfire season in the province.
Supervisor of Pumphouse and Trades, Ryan Makow told MyPGNow.com the city is constantly monitoring its well levels and will continue to do so over the summer and make further decisions based on what they are doing.
“Here at the city, we are pretty lucky. We pull most of our water from the Lower Nechako Aquifer and its 100-foot aquifer that is down below the surface. We are in a good spot, some of the communities that are pulling off surface water are in a little bit of a tighter spot.”
“We are just going to monitor our well levels at this point.”
Currently, sprinkling is permitted for even house numbers on even-numbered dates and odd house numbers on odd-numbered dates within the prescribed hours of the day.
In areas such as Western Acres sprinkling is off-limits from 8 am to 5 pm while all other sections of PG are unable to water their lawns from noon to 5 pm.
“If there are any people that are breaking the water restrictions rules they could be paying up to a $100 fine. As far as monitoring, we are going to have bylaw people doing walkabouts and, also residents of the city are encouraged call 3-1-1 if they are seeing any type of violations,” added Makow.
Makow mentioned there are ways people can be more proactive prior to summer.
“Some of the things residents can do to conserve some water is to avoid watering your grass on windy days, keep your grass a little bit longer to help conserve some of the moisture as well as turn your taps off while brushing your teeth, run your dishwashers with full loads and limit your shower lengths,”
A link to city water conservation can be found here.