Chapman Lake was “overflowing” with water as of Sept. 2, after five days of rain dropped more than 200 mm into the Sunshine Coast Regional District’s (SCRD) reservoir.
“We’ve always said we could go from minus three metres to full with five days of rain. We’re full. We’re overflowing right now at Chapman,” Bryan Shoji, the SCRD’s general manager of infrastructure services, said Wednesday.
With the influx of rain, the SCRD decided to relax watering restrictions for residents south of Pender Harbour to Stage 3 as of Friday, Sept. 4.
Stage 3 watering restrictions allow hand-watering of outside plants and aims to keep the Coast’s consumption at about 12 million litres a day in order to stretch the Chapman Lake water supply into what could be another drought.
“If we’re looking at going into a dry spell again until November, then we’ve got to make sure we have adequate supply to last until then,” Shoji said, noting he was waiting for a report from Environment Canada with climate projections for the fall.
“The missing part of the equation right now is the climate projection, so hopefully I get that today. Until we have that, we can’t say whether we’re going to go to Stage 2.”
If it looks like there will be adequate rainfall in the future, Shoji said watering restrictions would be relaxed.
As for the emergency siphon system that was pitched to access more water in Chapman Lake during the drought, Shoji said the system will still be installed once the weather clears, likely this Friday.
“We’re still proceeding with the installation, even if it’s just to give it a trial run,” Shoji said. All of the required approvals are now in place, he added.
“We want to make sure that it operates as per design.”
On the future of the Coast’s water supply, Shoji has prepared a report that recommends digging the trench to Chapman Lake deeper so that the community can access more water from the lake when the next dry spell hits.
SCRD directors were scheduled to debate that option and others at a Sept. 3 infrastructure services committee past Coast Reporter’s deadline this week.
