Sprinklers banned after city breaks water use record
With record water consumption across the city, Hamilton yesterday moved to water alert level three, meaning sprinkler use is banned.
The move to level three comes as the city broke its own record for most water used in a day, despite being at level two.
City council waters unit manager Emily Botje says people weren’t taking the “save water” message seriously.
Despite some recent rain, the return to dry, hot sunny days has seen water demand increase. According to the latest NIWA soil moisture data, most of the Waikato region is considered ‘severely drier than normal’, with drought conditions likely.
On Tuesday, January 18, nearly 91 million litres of water was used by Hamilton’s 60,000 households and businesses. That works out on average to more than 10 bathtubs full of water per household, per day — the highest consumption day on record.
“It is critical we reduce our overall water usage now – as our network is already under extreme pressure.
“Above all, we want to make sure everyone is doing their part to ensure there’s always enough water to go around, and water alert levels help us manage that.”
At water alert level three, sprinklers are not allowed to be used. Handheld hosing is still allowed at any time.
Council waters compliance staff are travelling around the city, monitoring usage, and notifying water wasters via letterbox drop. Concerned residents can also notify Council when they see someone breaking the rules through the Smart Water website, at smartwater.org.nz/ report/.
This high-use day was also not a one-off, with the top three highest daily figures recorded across Sunday (88.42 million litres), Monday (88.92 million litres), and Tuesday (90.84 million litres).
“The amount of water that we are currently using is alarming,” Botje said. “Hamilton is just about at the maximum sustainable level of water processing that our plant is able to provide. We strongly urge residents to reduce the amount of water they are using, particularly outdoors, because there is extraordinary pressure on our network right now and we want to make sure we all continue to have enough in the coming weeks and months.
“At the same time, we recognise there are plenty of people who are doing the right thing, and we’d like to thank those Hamiltonians for their efforts.”
Earlier this month, the council released figures showing residents of the city’s northern suburbs were using disproportionately more water compared to other parts of the city. Only about half of the water used by the city ends up at the Pukete wastewater treatment plant, indicating that there can sometimes be up to 45 million litres of water being used to water lawns and gardens and top up swimming pools on the city’s hottest days.
For more tips on how you can be smart with water, visit smartwater.org.nz.