‘Reduce water use’

RESIDENTS throughout the Southern Downs are being requested to be cautious with their water use.
The current drought situation has now triggered the introduction of medium level water restrictions for the Stanthorpe area alone effective from Sunday 9 March.
Southern Downs Regional Council’s Water and Wastewater manager Tendekai Mapeza said medium water restrictions mean residents can only use water outdoors between 6am-8am and 5pm-7pm.
“There is no change to permanent restrictions in all other areas outside of Stanthorpe,” Mr Mapeza said.
These restrictions are: residents at odd number or no number properties can water outdoors on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays anytime except between 10am and 4pm.
Meanwhile residents at even number properties can water on Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays anytime except between 10am and 4pm.
“Council wants to emphasise that residents should be careful with water use because tighter water restrictions may need to be imposed if residents do not reduce their water use and the situation does not change soon,” Mr Mapeza said.
“During the last three months our rainfall has been exceptionally low with forecasters suggesting that there is little prospect of any significant rain for an extended period, of at least the next month and beyond.
Mr Mapeza said rainfall had been particularly low with December being about one third of average,
January being about the same and February at around 10 per cent of normal rainfall totals.
February 2014 is likely to be the driest month on record for the past 18 years in Warwick and also the driest on record for the past 47 years in Stanthorpe, he said.
“The result of this is that our dams are dropping quite quickly and approaching the levels where the council will be obliged to impose more stringent water restrictions.
“We ask residents to be mindful of their water use by avoiding wastage and complying with the current permanent or medium water restrictions applicable to their location within the SDRC area.”
The SDRC Drought Management Plan can be found at www.sdrc.qld.gov.au. This outlines additional conditions applying to business users as well as those applying to all water users.