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Extreme drought conditions and the likelihood of another challenging fire season have prompted a community in one of the driest parts of the province to start managing its water supply early — and turning off the taps for people who don’t follow the rules.
The City of Merritt has announced water restrictions — that the mayor says wouldn’t usually be considered until mid-July — in an effort to conserve water ahead of wildfire season and get people in the habit of using less.
Level 3 watering restrictions are in effect, limiting lawn and garden watering to two times per week, on designated days depending on numbered addresses. Hand watering and washing is allowed any time.
Mayor Michael Goetz said he’s anxious about the months ahead, knowing the snowpack is the lowest ever recorded at this time of year.
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Why the fuck do they have lawns in the first place? You live in as close to a desert as Canada has, lay out some gravel, throw a cactus or two in, and call it a day.
There’s no need to water a lawn even if you “need” one. There’s nothing wrong with brown grass, it’ll change back once it rains.
Exactly
Gravel doesn’t work with some kids/pets. Perhaps mulch
Gravel is fine for them. Pets and
kidshumans adaptNo
Sure they do! If they don’t like it then they will just stay inside.
Gravel and cactus is maybe an exaggeration, but I expect there’s some kind of native groundcover that would be Good Enough. Or set up a buried greywater irrigation system if you really must have that lawn of imported green grass. Or take the kids and pets to the park to play, like apartment-dwellers do. Or just, y’know, suck it up during the bad years and accept you’re going to have a brown lawn from time to time. The ridiculously wasteful setup that exists in most suburbs, where people baby along vast tracts of climate-inappropriate grass cultivars, should never have existed.
I didn’t say lawn. When did I say lawn?
A non lawn ground cover that is soft is what I’m saying many families want.
You’re correct: in all fairness, it wasn’t you, specifically, who used the word “lawn”, and I could have chosen somewhere else to slip my reply into the subthread.
Around my area on the west coast we get a lot of artificial turf lawns. Best of both worlds if you can shell out 5-10k.
Use mulch
the water restrictions makes sense considering the horrifying wildfires that’s occurred in previous years
- in combination with droughts due to global warming, the argument for watering lawns makes much less sense as the priority has heavily shifted to needs than wants
“It’s really simple. If you don’t have water, you don’t have a town. It’s that simple. It’s over.”
yup
Step one fines. Fines should be based on income. So rather than a $25 fine a $25% of your income fine. This would get people’s attention. Step two a threat of shut off and double the fine. Step three shut off water and increase the fine. This is not an unsolvable problem it just needs the will to proceed.
I get your point but that’s an insane amount. That would be about $9000 for someone making minimum wage.
You’ve got to admit though - probably wouldn’t do it a second time.
Depends on the income period – I’d do 25% of daily income for a first offence.
i agree fines should scale, however i would do it to property value, instead of income.
What if you are renting?
It’s unfortunate that we can’t limit water by litres, so for a family of 4 put a limit of say 100L or something. People do still need to drink and cook unfortunately.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Extreme drought conditions and the likelihood of another challenging fire season have prompted a community in one of the driest parts of the province to start managing its water supply early — and turning off the taps for people who don’t follow the rules.
Mayor Michael Goetz said he’s anxious about the months ahead, knowing the snowpack is the lowest ever recorded at this time of year.
According to Agriculture Canada, the Merritt area, about 200 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, is facing a severe drought.
By starting at Level 3 now, Goetz hopes the city won’t have to enact tougher restrictions later in the year.
In previous years, the city has fined people who haven’t followed watering restrictions.
Linda Warner, a Merritt resident, said she’s thrilled the city is being proactive about conserving water now, rather than reacting when things are hot and dry.
The original article contains 622 words, the summary contains 143 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
