While Mother Nature cranks up the heat, the City of Penticton is preparing to start fining water abusers.
Temperatures are expected to reach a sizzling 36 C in the South Okanagan today after a high of 33 C on Monday at the Penticton Airport weather station.
Doug Lundquist, an Environment Canada meteorologist in Kelowna, said yesterday‘s high fell short of the record for the date. On July 26, 2006, the mercury climbed to 37.6 C. Slightly cooler temperatures (in the low 30s) are expected for Thursday through Sunday.
But as residents worry about their lawns and gardens (in addition to cooling off themselves), Carolyn Stewart, the city‘s water conservation co-ordinator, says water sprinkling restrictions must still be respected.
Domestic water consumption has risen to more than 39 million litres a day – down slightly from last year at this time. She remains hopeful consumption will not top the 42 million litre mark, the summer peak for the past three years.
“Normally what happens is it slowly increases from the beginning of July onwards,” she said. “Every million litres saved represents a large volume of water left in Okanagan Lake for the fish and recreation, if nothing else it means saving money on our water bill during these tough times.”
However, it seems not everyone appreciates the city‘s water conservation efforts.
Although city council axed funding for the Water Smart program ambassadors in a budget-cutting move, additional funding sources were found through the Okanagan Basin Water Board, Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen and FortisBC.
The two ambassadors have handed out warnings to about five times the number of residents than normal who are ignoring the city‘s sprinkling restrictions. The next step, Stewart said, is for fines to be issued.
“Normally I have only a couple of fines – people who choose not to listen,” she said. “But this year we have had a significant number of people that are about to be fined.”
About 10 people stand to be fined by the end of the month, after ignoring the first two notices. Fines start at $25 for a first offence, ranging up to a maximum of $500 for further offences.
Stewart said some people find it more convenient to ignore the warnings, than cut back on water consumption.
“They think the chances of them getting caught are slim to none,” she said.
Sprinkling regulations include odd-even day restrictions plus limited hours designed to reduce consumption during the heat of the day.
Meanwhile, Penticton‘s untreated agricultural water system has plenty of capacity remaining.
John Fenske, the city‘s public works superintendent, said more than 90 per cent capacity remains in all the city‘s irrigation system reservoirs. Due to the wet weather in May and June, the city has only been drawing on its stored water for the past two weeks.
