Cranbrooks water levels at the Phillips reservoir are the lowest they have ever been causing concern for next spring and summer.
This has been a hot and dry summer and as a result, the city reservoir has reached an all-time low in water volume,” said acting mayor Ron Popoff.
“Back in late August we issued Stage 3 water restrictions to reduce our outdoor water usage and while that has had some positive effects our daily water consumption is still too high. The reservoir where we store our water is now at six feet below the spillway and dropping. It’s important for the residents to know that we need to continue to conserve our water usage and hopefully, we can get some decent rain snowpack this winter to replenish our reservoir for next summer.”
Cranbrook residents have been using double the daily amount of water compared to the rest of the province.
“For me, it is kind of startling to realize that our average Cranbrook daily water usage is around 600L per person per day and in comparison that is double what the average provincial daily water use is,” said Popoff.
He says there will be discussions in council to come up with solutions.
“Council and senior staff will be talking during our budgeting discussions this fall/winter as well as options for increasing our reservoir capacity,” Popoff added.
“We have in the budget the need to rebuild and upsize our upper Gold Creek reservoir for better summer supply. Other things will be on the table. Do we need to start considering water meters in our community? That was an issue back before my time on council and maybe council needs to start having that conversation again.”