With scheduled maintenance taking place at the water treatment plant, residents of Weyburn are being asked to conserve water usage over the course of the next two weeks.
The mechanical work, part of ongoing upgrades to the facility, requires isolating half of the city’s treated water reservoir. That results in a temporary 50 per cent reduction in water capacity, according to City of Weyburn Director of Engineering Renee Cugnet.
“In preparation for the scheduled mechanical work to start in the reservoir this week, we started reducing our reservoir capacity last Friday in order to achieve that 50 per cent isolation by this Thursday,” Cugnet explained. “Our full capacity of our reservoir is 13 million litres, so a 50 percent isolation, or reduction, can't just happen overnight.”
On Tuesday, the situation was further complicated when a power outage impacted the raw water intake at Nickle Lake for about four hours. That outage caused an emergency water restriction notice to be issued as the reservoir’s already-lowered capacity dipped further. The reservoir is now back to 50 per cent capacity, and the emergency restriction has been lifted.
However, Cugnet stressed that water conservation is still needed.
“We are still asking residents to practice water conservation for the next two weeks until we're back up to that 100 per cent capacity,” she said. Suggested conservation practices include delaying non-essential water use like washing vehicles, changing pool water, or using sprinklers and other outdoor water features.
Cugnet also confirmed that Weyburn’s annual water conservation rules will remain in effect for 2025.
“We’re going to do annual water conservation year after year. We don’t change it,” she said. “So we’ll always keep our Waterless Wednesdays and our odd and even watering days. It’s just going to be kind of ongoing.”
The water conservation bylaw in Weyburn calls for no outside is of city water for lawn or garden watering on Wednesdays. Odd-numbered houses can water their lawns on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, while even-numbered addresses can water their lawns on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Lawn and garden watering is not permitted between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. on the prescribed days.
The City will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as the work progresses.