The village of Radium Hot Springs council has made changes to the water conservation and use bylaw to represent the community better.
“The water conservation bylaw in Radium is relatively new,” said Mayor Mike Gray.
“It’s something we started to update last year and as we made some updates we noticed we needed to do some more tweaks to make sure it fit the needs of our community, balancing the public interest in conserving water with the individual’s interest in being able to use what they need.”
Changes include adding new terms to the bylaw, such as drip and underground irrigation.
The bylaw will also see the removal of the seasonal watering schedule, which will be replaced with an all-year-round plan.
It’s passed three readings in council and will be up for adoption on April 8.
Mayor Gray said water has never been an issue in Radium, but they need to make sure it stays that way.
“Radium has had incredible luck with water up till now, but we certainly recognize that over the past few years, we are getting closer and closer to the line of how much luck we’re going to have,” he said.
Other plans are also in the works.
“We’re adding another sedimentation pond with a grant from the provincial government, but some of those costs are fairly high,” Gray said.
The village received $2.5 million for the project, which will see a new pond installed as well as a new raw water intake and screening chamber at the Forster Creek source.
“We needed to start taking some steps now,” he added.
“People in our community know that water is a valuable resource, we’re very fortunate to have incredibly good water, but we just want to make sure that it lasts without having too much of a burden on our system and our staff.”
The pond project should be wrapped up next year.
MORE: Radium gets sedimentation pond funding to help with water quality (Aug. 1, 2023)
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