'Save water' plea to Ross-shire residents from Scottish Water as warm spell sees demand soar and reservoir levels dip
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RESIDENTS In Ross-shire are being asked to use water "efficiently" after confirmation demand in the area has soared in recent days with the warm weather.
Scottish Water is making the appeal to people across the Black Isle, Inverness and Dornoch areas.
The publicly-owned utility is having to produce more than 200 million litres of extra water per day nationwide to maintain normal supplies - enough water to fill 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools or 2.4 million baths.
And, in Inverness, Dornoch and the Black Isle it is working round-the-clock to provide an additional 10 million litres of water per day in an effort to maintain normal supplies.
This includes tankering water into the network at Dornoch Water Treatment Works (WTW) and Glenconvinth WTW in the Beauly area and modifying the network on the Black Isle.
How you can help
Scottish Water is calling on all customers in these areas to help protect supplies and use water more efficiently by doing things like:
Use a watering can instead of a garden hose because hoses and sprinklers can use about 1000 litres per hour – more than the equivalent of 12 baths
Don’t use jet washers, which use an average of 36 litres of water
Don’t use paddling pools, which use an average of 400 litres of water (if pools are used try quarter filling them and using the water to water your garden afterwards)
turn the tap off when brushing teeth
use washing machines and dishwashers only when fully loaded
The call is aimed at customers in communities throughout Inverness, Dornoch and the Black Isle and at summer holidaymakers and visitors.
Last week, demand across the country was so high that Scottish Water had to provide 100 million litres of extra water per day, compared with normal levels at this time of year.
As temperatures soared in much of the country, this increased to more than 200 million litres of extra water per day over the weekend.
Scottish Water is working hard to maintain normal water supplies to all customers and is doing so by producing more water where water treatment works have the capacity, using storage and moving water between networks where possible.
Kes Juskowiak, Scottish Water’s Water operations general manager, said: “We are appealing to our customers across Inverness, Dornoch and the Black Isle to use water as efficiently as they can.
“These are very challenging conditions because of the warm, dry weather we’ve been experiencing.
“Water levels in our reservoirs are at 74 per cent. This is a fall from 77 per cent last week and from 90 per cent in late May.
“Current levels are below average for this time of year but the main issue is demand for water from customers, which has increased considerably during the warm weather. It’s not isolated to one group but rather is the result of how we all use water in warm weather, particularly in the garden.
“When garden water use increases dramatically, for things like sprinklers and paddling pools, that places considerable strain across our infrastructure to move the water as quickly as the customers need it.
“We are working hard to support the increase in tourism across these parts of the Highlands and elsewhere in Scotland, but we are asking all our customers to be more water efficient and aware of how the use water.
“If people in Inverness, Dornoch and the Black Isle - residents and visitors or holidaymakers - can take some small, simple steps to reduce their water use, they can make a big contribution towards our efforts to maintain normal supplies for everyone.”
Scottish Water posts facts, tips and activities on social media to raise awareness about why we need to save water and more information on saving water is available at www.scottishwater.co.uk/savewater.
