Okotoks water use continued to drop in 2010 and cool wet weather, lower residential consumption and the repair of a major leak downtown are being credited for the fall.
Water use dropped to 65 gallons per person per day in 2010, down from 70 gallons per person per day in 2009. This number is based on the total water consumption in Okotoks last year, not what was used by homes alone.
Okotoks’ municipal operations manager Dave Robertson called it an incredible achievement for the community.
He said reduced water use by residents and repairs to leaking water mains played a role in the decrease.
“It’s with a lot more tightening up of the system, people have changed their habits and the water rates going up certainly didn’t hurt either,” said Robertson.
The Town dropped its target water use last year from 70 gallons per person per day to 65 gallons per person per day.
Robertson said he believes water use could get even lower, potentially as low as 55 gallons per person per day.
“That would be an extremely tight system and having monitoring in place to react to any leakage that occurs instantaneously,” he said. “People’s habits are changing and the cost of water is going up and people just aren’t going to water their lawns.”
Robertson said the cool, wet summer in 2010 also played a big role in reducing water consumption, primarily by reducing the amount of outdoor watering.
“We virtually didn’t have spring or summer and it rained about every third day,” he said.
One of the big factors in last year’s decrease, he said, was the Town closed off a major leak from a water main in the downtown area which was gushing 200 gallons per minute.
Robertson said the Town’s water system is extremely tight, estimating only three to four per cent of water consumption is from leaks in the system.
As well, he said much of the growth in recent years has been in multi-family developments, which use less water than single-family housing.
He said the Town’s current water licence allocation, including the two new licences approved by the Province in December, is 662.3 million gallons per year.
Robertson estimated this will serve a population of 27,000, based on a water usage of 65 gallons per person per day. At the end of 2010, he said the Town’s population was 23,688 people based on water utility accounts.
The Town had room to spare last year, despite not having any additional licences.
Not including the recently approved water licence transfers, Okotoks water allocation was 608.3 million gallons per year last year. It used 561 million gallons last year.
“Go back two years ago, our total water consumption was 602 million gallons, which was virtually no room to spare,” he said.
Municipal planning manager Steve Hanhart the news won’t have much impact on how the Town proceeds with new developments.
“As we move forward we’ll base our approval of new developments on existing water consumption patterns,” he said.
Hanhart said the numbers raise the question of whether water use can be brought down further and whether it would allow further development with the licenses that are in place. However, he said they will not rush to drop development targets unless it is proven they would be successful.
He said the lower water usage won’t affect the Town’s efforts to acquire new licenses.
“We have some breathing space here but we know we have to continue to acquire some additional water supply in some new way shape or form,” said Hanhart.
The Town is in the process of developing a water allotment system to allow developers to proceed with proposed new communities in town. Hanhart said the Town will be meeting with developers this month to flush out the details on how a system would work.
