A water ban in Okotoks will remain in place over the long weekend.
The Town of Okotoks issued an outdoor water ban in addition to its fire ban on July 28. Sustained hot temperatures through July led to increased outdoor watering by residents and the Town’s reservoirs could not keep up to demand.
Chris Radford, Okotoks infrastructure and operations director, said the Town will continue to monitor the situation over the long weekend and determine whether the water ban can be lifted next week.
“The demand has dropped off significantly due to the ban, so maybe we will be looking at introducing some limited outdoor use,” said Radford.
He said the water ban was put in place because hot weather made the Town’s ability to pump water drop off at the same time as demand increased from an average 7,000 cubic metres per day to as high as 15,500 cubic metres. Since the ban was implemented, average use has dropped back to the 7,500 cubic-metre range.
The Town was pumping 12,500 cubic metres per day of water from its wells in April, but hot weather had dropped that amount to 11,000 cubic metres per day, meaning there’s less water to go around due to the impact of weather on the aquifer, he said.
Normally, on non-watering days, the Town’s reservoirs are able to recover but with high usage there were no recovery days, he said.
“We were just getting to the point where the back-to-back record consecutive watering days and our inability to fully recover where we needed to just caused us to put the ban on,” said Radford.
There has been some backlash in the community, with some criticizing the Town for continuing to develop and grow with a lack of water. However, Radford said the outdoor watering ban is not related to the amount of water the Town can draw from the Sheep River aquifer.
“We produce enough water for indoor use, I don’t think anybody’s had any challenges there,” said Radford. “With the water ban in place usage went down more than double, so obviously it’s the outdoor use causes the issues.”
Coun. Carrie Fischer said the current ban is directly related to consumption through July and residents shouldn’t be worried about current development impacting water systems.
“For the last two years pretty much the only way to get development approved is if [developers]they bring their own water licence, or if we bought a water licence and can begin to allocate to the developers in queue,” said Fischer.
The Town continues to wait on funding for a water pipeline that would bring a more secure water source from the Bow River. Once it is in place, the Town will be able to approve developments currently waiting to break ground, she said.
“We’ve got land even within our pre-annexation boundary, and within that 30,000 cap that we can’t approve for development because we don’t have water,” said Fischer.
She said the wait for water is having a broader impact on the Town of Okotoks and developers, and a sustained water source via pipeline can’t come soon enough.
Once a waterline is in place, a lot of the seasonal woes should be mitigated, she said.
“But it doesn’t mean, to me, that we ever get to a place where we can water seven days a week in the Town of Okotoks,” said Fischer. “I think those days have sailed in consciousness as a whole, because I just don’t think it’s a responsible use of water.
“In the world we’re in today, with the awareness we have of water scarcity, we need to be conscious of how we’re using this resource in a responsible way.”
It starts with maintaining scheduled water days and adhering to water bans, she said.
It’s part of long-term management, because there’s no way to know when the rain will come, she said. The most important part is maintaining water levels for indoor use and firefighting, she said.
“It’s better to take a prudent conservation approach now and manage that through the fall until we get some rain, rather than getting to a point where we’re in an emergency situation where now we can’t use any water,” said Fischer.
