By Sheri Ebert

Saskatoon looks to enforce water restrictions with fines

Jun 16, 2011 | 4:10 PM

The City of Saskatoon is begging people to comply with mandatory water restrictions, but the consequences of not doing so have yet to be laid out.

Jeff Jorgenson, general manager of utility services for the City of Saskatoon, admits that the by-law enforcing the restrictions has no teeth.

“Right now there isn’t a specific provision for penalty at all, it just gives the city the right to order mandatory water restrictions,” said Jorgenson.

However, city council is holding a special meeting on Monday to amend the waterworks by-law.

If council approves the amendment, people caught disobeying any water restrictions in the future will face fines.

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No water usage allowed outside

Meanwhile, repairs to the city's water treatment plant, that initiated the restrictions in the first place, continue.

Residents have been asked to refrain from watering gardens and lawns until at least the end of Friday. City-owned grass is not exempt.

However, two municipal golf courses are.

“The Holiday Park Golf Course and the Silverwood Golf Course have their own independent water systems that pump raw water from the South Saskatchewan River and then we put it in holding ponds and within the holding ponds we pump it out to our irrigations system,” Cary Humphfrey, with the City, explained.

Wildwood Golf Course does water with drinking water so Humphfrey says the sprinklers are turned off there.

He says if residents spot any City sprinklers on during the water restrictions, they should report it to the parks branch.

A few missed heads?

Fire and Protective Services confirm that there was at least one fire station, Thursday morning, where an automated sprinkler system got missed and went off.

paNOW was told that that has been fixed and workers are making sure that no other automated systems will turn on.

A listener also phoned in, mid-morning on Thursday, who said she spotted park sprinklers running at Avenue L and Bedford Road.

No water park fun for kids

More water-restriction fallout, as the City says the Kinsmen Park Play Village will be closed Thursday and Friday to conserve water.

Regular hours of operations resume Saturday, at 10 a.m. The Kinsmen Park Rides remain open with their regular hours.

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