Dovedale and Waimea residents will be most affected by the revised Water Restriction levels for users of Tasman District Council-managed urban reticulated supplies which start on Monday.
From Monday 19 February, residents in Richmond, Hope, Māpua/ Ruby Bay, Redwood Valley 1 and 2 and Eighty-Eight Valley will move to Phase C restrictions.
Nelson residents living adjacent to Champion Road, Wakatū Industrial Estate, and parts of Saxton Road West, where water is supplied from the Richmond Water Supply Scheme, will also face Phase C water restrictions.
Water users in Brightwater and Wakefield will remain in Phase A.
However, reticulated water users in Dovedale will remain at Phase D with the likelihood of moving to Phase E soon if there is no drop in demand.
Tasman Group Manager – Community Infrastructure Richard Kirby acknowledged there had been a number of changes in terms of the extent of restrictions, which have been dictated by our efforts to keep within our consented takes.”
“These were affected by the amount of rainfall and the demand for water in the Waimea and Wakefield urban supplies.”
“However, the continued summer water demand combined with a long-range forecast of dry weather has prompted a review of the situation.”
“Our consents dictate that we are only allowed 80% of the consented take and many of our schemes are exceeding this, so we need further restrictions to comply.”
The decision to keep Dovedale at Phase D stemmed from the area currently being at an unprecedented Stage 4 (or 65 per cent reduction in use) for consent holders.
“We therefore need to keep Phase D restrictions to keep compliance, but we stress that water is still allowed to be used for public health and stock wellbeing reasons.”
“If use at Dovedale does not drop below 80% of our consented take this week, it will go to Phase E next week.”
“Under Phase E, users can only use water for drinking, sanitation, medical, health and safety, firefighting and livestock purposes.”
Richard also acknowledged that “some in the community will want to know why we have these restrictions when the Waimea Community Dam is full. Although the dam is full it has not been fully commissioned and is intended to be commissioned in March 2024.
“Currently the outlet pipework is not fully installed so no additional water can be released other than what is going over the spillway. We understand that Waimea Water Limited is looking at options to increase the release of water from the dam.
“Our message to use water according to their area’s Phase level is more important than ever - conserving water as much as possible will lower the demand and therefore the restrictions we put in place.”
Information on ways to save water can be found here.
More information on water restriction phases can be found here.
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