Kamloops council to get first look at Drought Response Plan next week

Kamloops City Council is set to review a draft Drought Response Plan next week.

The report comes after the city saw severe drought conditions, which resulted in the creation of a cross-departmental drought response team and strict water restrictions being implemented in mid-August.

By early August, the city was seeing level four or five drought conditions and “historically” low levels in the North and South Thompson River basins.

“Summer 2023 was unusually hot and dry, which worsened the drought conditions,” the staff report says.

“During the 2023 drought season, the South, North, and Lower Thompson basins were assigned the elevated designations of Drought Levels 4 and 5 for 105, 105, and 77 days, respectively.”

The goal of the water use restrictions was to produce a 25% reduction in overall potable water production and data collected by the city shows that the effort made by the community to adjust their water use habits had a “significant” impact on conservation results.

Once the drought conditions began to ease in the fall, the response team conducted a “post-event debrief” that prompted a need for a concrete Drought Response Plan and accompanying bylaw amendments.

A staff report headed to council on Tuesday says the team reviewed the effectiveness of the drought response in 2023 and found opportunities for improvement.

That included reviewing feedback from stakeholders as well as similar documents from other cities.

Staff say the Drought Response Plan is intended to accomplish the following objectives:

• influence the water use behaviour with the goal of reducing overall water use

• ensure the continued provision of potable water for critical uses

• maintain adequate water supply for emergency uses such as fire suppression

• protect critical environmental flows

It focuses on planning, response and continuous improvement and includes a Water Use Restrictions Plan, Phased Irrigation Reduction Plan and Drought Response Communications Plan, which would be developed this year.

That communications plan would include media advertisements, social media campaigns, electronic reader boards, door hangers for compliance concerns, drought level signage and a new webpage on the city’s website.

It would also include direct communication with potentially impacted water users and business improvement associations.

Should council approve the Drought Response Plan, city staff would then bring forward amendments to the Waterworks and Municipal Ticket Information bylaws for adoption “as soon as possible.”

Council will review the 16-page draft document on Feb. 27 at 1:30 pm