A sprinkler ban remains in place in Wellington, but the threat of level 3 restrictions which would mean a ban on all outdoor water use has dropped. Photo: 123rf
Wellingtonians appear to have ducked further water restrictions for now - thanks to household efforts to save water and "cooler weather".
In January, Wellington Water issued an urgent plea for residents to cut back, warning the region was at risk of level 3 restrictions (a ban on all residential outdoor water use) within one to three weeks.
The agency's director of regulatory services, Charles Barker, said the region had made it through "a tricky summer", and the likelihood of moving to level 3 - including a ban on all residential outdoor water use - had dropped.
"Today we have run the numbers again and what this shows is that the hard mahi of the community has really paid off with the likelihood of moving to level 3 dropping down to 16 percent.
"Going into summer, there was a genuine risk of tighter water restrictions, and we called on the public to play their part.
"We've managed to avoid level 3 restrictions, and this has reinforced what we already knew - that Wellingtonians want to do the right thing and can work together to make sure there's enough water for everyone."
Level 2 restrictions - including a sprinkler ban - remain in place due to low river levels.
However, the chance of moving to level 4 restrictions (a ban on all outdoor water use, two-minute showers and limits on laundry) was now "a very remote possibility of 5 percent", thanks to the forecast for April, as long as demand remained manageable.
"We anticipate being able to safely reduce from level 2 to level 1 once more steady rain fills up the catchments over the next few weeks," Barker said.
"This means that we still do have to continue to keep an eye on our water use and avoid any major spikes in demand over the next few weeks."
About 45 percent of Wellington's drinking water is currently lost to leaks.
Barker said Wellington acknowledged the "frustration" about the requests to conserve water in view of the problems with leaky pipes.
"We want to assure Wellingtonians that we are committed to working with our council owners to deliver a more resilient water network and we are out there every day finding and fixing leaks."
Its leaks dashboard (updated on Wednesday March 13) showed there were 221 leaks fixed this week, and 878 in February.
