The Town of Sedgewick has imposed a Total Watering Ban in response to critically low reservoir levels. The ban is in effect as of Thursday, August 19th and will be in place for a minimum of one week with its status updated again before Thursday, August 26th. Should water levels be replenished by that time, the ban will be lifted.
A total watering ban applies to all properties both inside and outside of town corporate limits which use the Town of Sedgewick domestic water supply system. The ban restricts all watering of lawns, filling pools and hot tubs, and other outdoor water usage. Drip irrigation, hand held hoses, and using water containers continues to be permitted.
The reservoir levels have been depleted in excess of 25% of capacity. These levels place the Town in a challenging position in our preparedness for the risk of fire. Despite a watering restriction which permitted watering on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings, watering has continued outside of this schedule resulting in the water treatment plant not been able to keep up to demand and levels continuing to fall. The Town of Sedgewick would like to remind residents that a healthy lawn requires no more than 1 inch of water each week. This summer, water distribution rates have regularly risen to 5 or 6 liters per second in the middle of the night which points to automatic sprinkler systems being used more than once/week and during restricted hours.
Although the ban focuses on outdoor watering, we ask residents to conserve water in any means possible during this period. 2018, 2019 and 2020 saw no water restrictions being put in place in Sedgewick demonstrating that the reservoir was able to serve the community adequately. There is no data pointing to a deficiency in the water system, but rather there is data showing demand is beyond what it has been in past years.
Bylaw 542 authorizes the Town of Sedgewick to issue violation tags to offenders of a watering ban. A person who contravenes any provision of the bylaw can be liable under summary conviction to pay a fine of not less than $100 and not more than $2500.