Drought Condition Moves to Severe
The Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority (CRCA) Water Response Team agreed today to move the local drought condition declaration from “Moderate” to “Severe”, due to ongoing drought conditions. We encourage you to take steps to reduce your water use, in particular outdoors. This includes watering plants and lawns, and washing driveways, sidewalks and cars.
Water conservation
We thank our customers for taking steps to conserve water during this dry season. Your efforts are making a difference and helping to ensure that municipal water treatment facilities are able to meet demands, while ensuring adequate supply for fire protection.
The CRCA monitors and reports on water quality and quantity of our watershed in cooperation with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. While the municipal water treatment system operated by Utilities Kingston draws its drinking water source from Lake Ontario, we support the CRCA’s advisory by issuing the following water conservation tips:
Gardening and landscaping
- Practice drought tolerant gardening to minimize water use. Learn how to design a garden that requires less water by visiting our Water Conservation Garden during daylight hours at 1211 John Counter Boulevard.
- Lawns require no more than 1" of water a week.
- Similarly, trees need four to five gallons of water once per week, even in drought conditions.
- Grass that goes brown during a dry spell is not dead or dying, but simply dormant. It will turn green again when the rains return.
Cooling off
- Instead of running water outdoors at individual residences, centralize and conserve water use by cooling off at one of the City’s many splash pads.
- Take shorter showers to help conserve water.
- Use low-flow showerheads to reduce the flow by 40 to 60 per cent and save up to eight litres of water per minute.
Household use
- Check for toilet leaks (and fix them) to save 1,400 litres of water per month.
- Using full loads and shorter washing machine cycles save 95 litres of water per load.
- Doing a full dishwashing load on a shorter cycle saves 28 litres per load.
- Wash your car at a carwash that recycles water to conserve water and prevent harmful run-off pollution.
Visit our conservation tips webpage to learn more ways to save water, energy and money.
Watering restrictions
Watering restrictions remain in effect, in accordance with The City of Kingston By-law No. 2006-122 (the “Water By-law”). By complying with the by-law, you help ensure reliable water supply, environmental sustainability and responsible infrastructure management.
- Have a building with an odd-numbered address? You may use outdoor treated water on odd-numbered calendar days.
- Have a building with an even-numbered address? You may use outdoor treated water on even-numbered calendar days.
- On your scheduled day, outdoor watering is permitted at any time with a hand-held hose, can or bucket for activities such as watering lawns and gardens, washing cars and recreation.
- Sprinkling devices, such as lawn sprinklers, can only be used in the mornings between 5 and 10 AM on your scheduled day.
Learn more from our page on watering restrictions.