Those looking to water their lawns this year will have an extra hour to do so, as sprinkling times are set to increase by one hour, extending to 10 p.m.
Last year’s times, which generated much contention from residents, was from 7 to 9 p.m. and 6 to 8 a.m. for manual sprinklers, and midnight to 4 a.m. for automatic sprinklers. The one-hour extension in the evening is designed to provide people time to leave their sprinklers on long enough. Councillors said people come home later in the summer months and sometimes don’t have enough time before 9 p.m. to water their lawns.
Coun. Dave Baker made the motion to extend the times during the Feb. 26 council meeting.
“I think the biggest reason people run sprinklers outside the designated times is because there is not enough time,” he said. “I’d like to go with 7 to 10 p.m. because people that I know work and can’t put their sprinklers on in time.”
According to Coun. Clara Norgaard, the former times were needed so the water system has a chance to replenish itself.
“The reason why the Water Resource Advisory Committee picked these hours was to give the system an opportunity to recharge itself before the next big pressure use came on,” she said.
“These times are right, because you don’t need to put one inch of water per week on your lawns.”
She said the system has a hard time recharging when too many people want water at the same time.
But according to Darrell Finnigan, Merritt’s public works superintendent, 7 to 10 p.m. is ideal.
“It doesn’t really make a difference [if you extend the times by one hour],” he said. “We try to spread everything out and the extra one hour won’t make a difference.”
