The city of Merritt is asking residents to stop watering their lawns and washing their cars as drought conditions worsen.
CAO Sean Smith says the increased restrictions come as the Coldwater River remains extremely dry at drought level 4, while the Nicola River is now considered to be dry at drought level 2.
“Anytime you can go as long a period as we have without rain even though there is lots of water in the aquifers, the surface water on the Coldwater River, in particular, experiences drought conditions,” he told NL News.
He says the restrictions are needed to protect local fish populations with late-run Chinook Salmon trying to spawn in the lower and mid portions of the Coldwater River.
Other key fish species include Thompson Steelhead, Coho Salmon, Bull Trout, and Mountain Whitefish with the Thompson Steelhead and Coho Salmon on the endangered and threatened list respectively.
“There’s a critical fish rearing level of flow and that is 0.45 cubic metres per second. My understanding is that we’re running about 0.37 cubic metres right now,” Smith said. “Anything that we can do to hopefully keep some water in the Coldwater River really does a lot to be able to support getting up above that critical fish rearing value again.”
Smith says the water level on the Coldwater River this year is comparable to the lows reached during last year’s drought.
“It doesn’t always get to a complete shutdown but it certainly as both in 2019 and now in 2020, and so we recognize that its hugely inconvenient for residents and for the most part people have been very supportive,” he added.
“You know, we have one of the most vulnerable rivers in the province when it comes to drought and we recognize this as a critical problem that needs to be resolved.”
These new watering restriction apply to timed automatic irrigation systems, manual sprinklers, and hand watering. People will be able to water their gardens and flowers by hand as long as they are using a controlled flow nozzle.