Water restrictions likely for Tweed Shire

TWEED Shire is on the verge of a water crisis with threatened restrictions by late April.

The water level of Tweed Shire’s Clarrie Hall Dam is below 90 per cent capacity after months of dry weather.

Tweed Shire Council is warning water restrictions will be in place within eight weeks without significant rain.

Shire water and wastewater manager Anthony Burnham said “the level of the dam is dropping close to 2 per cent a week, meaning we have eight weeks until we hit 75 per cent capacity and have to declare Level One water restrictions”.

“To delay the imposition of restrictions, we all need to conserve water,” he said.

“The average use per person per day in the Tweed is 177 litres, against a target of 160 litres. We know we can do better and there’s no time like now.”

In March last year the council put off committing to a $70 million doubling of Clarrie Hall Dam’s capacity while it explored other “sustainable water supply and demand management options”.

Meanwhile, the sale water outside the shire of has been banned. Water carters are able to supply shire customers but cannot sell water across the shire boundary. Water carting is banned from Uki and Tyalgum supplies.

Level One restrictions include no watering lawns, watering gardens every second day, no sprinkler or soaker hoses, and no garden watering on the 31st of the month.