Following increased precipitation over the past two months, the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority has downgraded its low-water advisory to Level 2 after spending more than three months under the most severe Level 3 water status.
The decision to reduce to Level 2 in the Rideau Valley watershed was made on Nov. 25, five days after the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority
also downgraded its low-water status to Level 2
, Tammy Rose, the City of Ottawa’s general manager of infrastructure and water improvements, said in a memo to council released on Thursday.
Level 2 is the second of three water advisories a conservation authority can issue and “indicates a potentially serious problem,” while encouraging residents to avoid using water for non-essential purposes.
Meanwhile, the South Nation Conservation Authority, which encompasses parts of Gloucester, Navan, Osgoode and Findlay Creek, decided to remain at Level 3 low-water status after a meeting on Nov. 25.
As freezing temperatures set in, Rose warned that watershed conditions “could decline again without continued precipitation to supplement flows.”
“This will be monitored closely as the winter season begins and freezing temperatures settle in,” she wrote in the memo.
Even during Level 2 conditions,
private wells can still be impacted
, Rose said, as all households not on the City of Ottawa’s municipal water distribution network are encouraged to continue reducing water consumption by 20 per cent.
Since a private well is a personal water source on private property, neither the city nor the conservation authorities have the power to enforce reduced water usage and it is up to well users to follow the recommendations of the conservation authorities, the memo said.
The city’s central drinking water system is not impacted by current low-water conditions and city staff say they do not anticipate impacts as the city’s two drinking water facilities draw less than one per cent of the Ottawa River’s flow, Rose wrote.
“Staff continue to monitor ongoing weather conditions and are prepared to respond should impacts to the city’s central drinking water system or communal well systems arise,” the memo added.
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