Metro Vancouver has implemented Stage 2 watering restrictions on Friday, August 4, 2023, which prohibit all lawn watering in the region, including the North Shore.
However, trees, shrubs, and flowers can be watered by hand or using soaker hoses or drip irrigation at any time, or by using a sprinkler between 5 and 9 am any day. Vegetable gardens can also be watered at any time. Aesthetic water features, such as fountains, cannot be filled or topped up. Washing impermeable surfaces like driveways and sidewalks is also prohibited except in limited circumstances.
New permits for watering new lawns or lawns being treated for the European Chafer Beetle will not be issued though the permits issued in Stage 1 remain in effect until they expires.
Metro’s Water Conservation Plan is designed to reduce demand for drinking water through specific water restrictions, which are implemented in three stages. Summer restrictions take effect on May 1 each year, and remain in place until October 15.
Metro Vancouver typically delivers one billion litres of treated drinking water each day, however, that number can increase by more than 50 per cent during the summer, largely due to lawn watering and other outdoor uses.
In West Vancouver, some residents are using four times more water this summer compared to past years.
Don’t we live in a temperate rain forest? This is ridiculous! These City Govs Staffers continue to over regulate, over think and get in the way of the residents just living our lives. And of course today it’s raining (again). We don’t need any water restrictions.
Please explain the logic of bringing in hundreds of thousands new people if we have a water shortage that restricts the people who are already here? Why are the splash playgrounds still going? The other big question is that if we are so short of water why are we sellling it to the US? What are the local governments doing to assist residents in the use of water – how about supplying free water barrels to home owners?
Canada is 4th in the world with a fresh water supply of 7% so again what is the issue?
Just another power restriction – by the way it looks like all the special little flower beds muncipalities are well kept and watered but I have to water the trees and plants in front of my building because the city NEVER does. We also need to make sure that the grass next to sidewalks is kept on the wet side to save it from fires from cigarette butts