One Kamloops resident has asked the city if watering restrictions on even and odd days in the summer could be lifted.

Jack Rainey asked that question at council this week, in response to a city staff report that showed water usage has dropped by 25 per cent in the past decade, and by seven per cent in 2018 compared to 2017. City staff say the reduction is largely thanks to conservation from water meter systems.

“There’s a reason I ask this, is that most of your irrigation systems cannot easily be programmed to do one day a week. For instance if my program is to do Monday, well this Monday’s an even day and the next Monday’s an odd. So I’m just wondering there’s any way to perhaps move that restriction,” Rainey says.

Civic operations director Jen Fretz says the city tends to be hesitant to change irrigation rules since it’s by far the biggest use of water in the city.

“Our operational restriction is, how much water can we push through the water treatment plant at one time?” Fretz says.

“When we were even talking about water meters initially, we were looking at ‘should we be changing restrictions?’ And the discussion at that time was because we don’t know the answer to ‘can we provide enough water if everyone turns on their irrigation at the same time,’ we decided to be conservative and leave things as they were.”