EDITORIAL – Stop pointing the finger at City Hall and start using less water

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

WATER RESTRICTIONS have been a thing in our part of the world for a long time.

We’re used to being told not to irrigate our lawns during the heat of the day, and the even-odd watering rule has been a summer-time fact of life seemingly forever.

But we’ve become used to both high quality and quantity in Kamloops, seldom having to engage in serious conservation measures. If anything, an over-abundance of water has been a much bigger problem than a lack of it.

So it’s no surprise that when City Hall urges residents to start reducing their water consumption, those same residents would rather point the finger back at City Hall than take responsibility themselves.

The City should stop wasting water before it tells us to conserve, they say. Use less water on sports fields. Cut down on the watering of gardens and parks, etc.

And while the City is at it, shut down the car washes and order people with swimming pools to stop filling them.

We expect everyone else to do it but, please, don’t expect us to be inconvenienced. Well, the City is trying to send a message right now. It has reduced overall irrigation by 25 per cent and irrigation of non-playing fields by 50 per cent.

That’s a pretty strong message. If that message doesn’t get through, it may have to be followed with mandatory instead of voluntary restrictions. We might have to become one of those cities with brown grass instead of green. And it might become a provincewide edict.

Kamloops is in a level 4 drought, and parts of the province are at level 5, the highest level there is. Global predictions are that drought conditions, including the risk of flash droughts that hit almost without warning, will continue to get worse.

Droughts, floods, fires, smoke pollution, heat domes — that’s the world we’re living in now. We can’t expect everyone except ourselves to deal with it.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.