RECENT rains over south-east Australia’s high country delivered a welcome, wet kiss to Sunraysia gardeners yesterday, with Lower Murray Water announcing water restrictions will be eased back to Stage 1 from midnight on Monday.
The easing of restrictions for all householders and businesses in LMW’s jurisdiction, between Koondrook and the South Australian border, comes three days after Sunraysia and Murray Valley irrigators received a 16 per cent boost to their high-reliability water allocations.
As a bulk water entitlement holder, LMW received the same increase, taking its allocation to 53 per cent, the best figure since 2006-07. Its board responded this week by easing restrictions two full levels, from 3a to 1.
Owen Russell, the authority’s general manager, customer services, said the board had met yesterday and decided to relax restrictions almost immediately, after originally deciding several weeks ago to delay any relaxation of restrictions until the end of the year.
The most immediate benefit to the 60,000 urban and rural customers in LMW’s region will be the removal of timed restrictions on hand watering of gardens and lawns – “hand watering” refers to systems that must be turned on by hand.
From Tuesday, gardeners will be able to water lawns and gardens for as long as necessary, on any day of the week – provided they use a hand-held hose with a trigger-type nozzle, or a watering can or bucket.
For more of this story, purchase your copy of Thursday’s Sunraysia Daily 5/11/2009.