One bucket for cleaning cars: Water-use restrictions implemented in South Island

A Southland district-wide sprinkler ban is in place. Photo / Dean Purcell

The dry weather of the past few weeks is starting to bite in the South.

Queenstown Lakes District Council has implemented water restrictions for the district while the Gore District Council placed water restrictions on Mataura residents yesterday.

Both councils were asking the community to conserve water as much as possible.

The water alert level one restrictions in the Queenstown-Lakes area take place with immediate effect.

These require residents and visitors to keep hand-held hosing to a minimum at all times and only use irrigation sprinklers from midnight to 6am when general demand is at its lowest.

Council infrastructure operations manager Simon Mason said there was significant demand on local networks as a result of the sustained warm dry weather, putting pressure on supply.

“We have observed extended periods where water is being drawn from the networks’ reservoirs faster than it can be replaced, which obviously isn’t sustainable and can compromise the volume of water available to respond to an emergency, such as a fire or system failure,” he said.

“By taking a few simple steps now everyone can help ensure that the network remains in good shape, especially with the hot weather forecast to stick around.

“We’ll continue to monitor the situation and will remove the restrictions once demand has fallen to more sustainable levels.

“I’d like to thank the local community in advance for their co-operation.

The Gore District Council has initiated level three water restrictions for Mataura.

Level three restrictions mean residents and businesses should only water vegetable and flower gardens, trees and shrubs using a hose and for two hours each day, either between 7-9am or 7-9pm.

Grass areas can not be watered, there is no running water for recreation, a bucket should be used for cleaning cars, boats, caravans or trailers and only pools that hold up to 350 litres can be filled or topped up.

Cleaning commercial vehicles and trailers should only happen for regulatory, health and safety or emergency reasons.

There will also be restrictions on council activities in the Mataura.

Flower gardens, trees and shrubs can only be watered between 9pm and 6am, and the cleaning of fleet vehicles is restricted.

The council last week asked Mataura residents to conserve water as the amount of water being pumped into the Mataura network was less than the amount being used.

Gore District Council three waters operations manager Aaron Green said demand was still exceeding supply.

The council’s resource consent from Environment Southland allows 1500cu m of water per second a day to be taken from Pleura Dam.

“The water level in the [Pleura] dam is dropping too quickly for our liking,” he said.

“Putting restrictions in place now may delay or even avoid the need to pump water from the Mataura River to supplement the water supply.”

MetService was forecasting a few showers over the next 10 days.

Green said Gore’s water supply was holding its own.

“Gore is using between 4500cu m and 5000cu m a day at present, which is about 500cu m more than this time last year.”

A Southland district-wide sprinkler ban is in place.