The community has tightened its belt - reducing outdoor water use to achieve MidCoast Water Services' target levels across the region - but a continued effort in the coming weeks is needed.
"With only light coastal rainfall recently across the MidCoast, there has not been enough substantial rain to replenish river flows which is how our water storage is increased," MidCoast Council's Director of Water Services Brendan Guiney said.
“Long term weather forecasts indicate there is little chance of substantial rainfall in the catchment areas across the MidCoast region in the coming weeks.
“As a result moderate water restrictions remain in force for the time being. "We've got a way to go before we can relax the restrictions - so we're encouraging everyone to keep up the good work and follow the guidelines for outdoor water use," he said.
Under the moderate restriction guidelines outside watering, using hand-held hoses, can take place for one hour every second day, between 4pm and 9am only.
Garden irrigation systems may only be used for 15 minutes as part of the one hour allocation. If your house number is an even number, water on the even days of the month; for houses with odd numbers, water on the odd days of the month, and there's no watering at all on the 31st day of any month.
This includes topping up home pools. For more information about outdoor water use during moderate restrictions, please visit midcoastwater.com.au/restrict
"We thank the MidCoast community for their positive response and their action in reducing outdoor water use since restrictions began on 1 February," Brendan Guiney said.
“Right across the region, the drop in water usage has met our targets, indicating that the community is abiding by water restrictions."
During moderate restrictions, Water Services aims for a usage of 24 million litres per day on the Manning Scheme (Manning and Forster Tuncurry regions).
As a comparison, on a wet day (when no one is using water outside due to rainfall) the area uses about 17 million litres. On a hot day (without restrictions) it can be up to 32 million litres.
The target for now is 24 - that's our magic number for water use across the MidCoast region. If you're keen to see how we're doing, you can track our actual use each day by visiting midcoastwater.com.au/restrict. Every few days, we'll upload the results of your efforts to reduce outdoor water use.
For more water saving tips for your household, visit midcoastwater.com.au/site/Summer-water-savers and share with the neighbours.
