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City of Nelson ushers in water restrictions due to supply

Nelson Daily Staff
By Nelson Daily Staff
July 8th, 2016

The City of Nelson is taking no chance on water this summer, issuing permanent water restrictions on residents due to concern about its supply at its source.

The new restrictions were recently passed by Nelson City Council.

Under the new rules, even-numbered addresses in the city can water on even-numbered days while odd-numbered addresses can only sprinkle on odd-numbered days.

Watering includes lawn, trees, shrubs, vegetable and flower gardens watered by sprinkler or an irrigation system.

The hours of restricted watering is between 4-9 a.m. and 7-10 p.m.

Nelson’s primary water source is Five Mile Creek, located in the West Arm Wilderness Park with secondary seasonal sources at Anderson Creek in Fairview and Selous Creek at Ymir Road.

The City of Nelson has three water reservoirs: Mountain Station, the main reservoir, with a capacity of 5 million Imperial gallons; Rosemont reservoir, with a capacity of 300,000 Imperial gallons; and Fairview reservoir, with a capacity of 440,000 Imperial gallons.

There is also approximately 350,000 Imperial gallons of active storage throughout the system.

All of the City’s of Nelson’s water supply comes from rainfall and snowpack melt. City staff said the snowpack in the watershed is the third-lowest in the past 13 years.

None of it is glacial runoff, nor is it pumped from aquifers, Kootenay Lake or any other reserve source.

Although Lakeside playing fields gets its water from Kootenay Lake and the city cemetery in Uphill uses a well to irrigate.

The City of Nelson explains ways on its website to conserve water.

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