Jersey could still face hosepipe restrictions

There is still a chance islanders could face a hosepipe restriction - despite recent rainfall taking Jersey out of a drought.

A drought was declared last Tuesday after 15 days without rain, but that drought was broken on Tuesday, however, Jersey Water said it was still preparing to use its desalination plant to turn sea water into drinking water.

Jersey Water said reservoirs were 65% full and that compared to its 10-year average for August it was down from 77%.

Mark Bowden, head of water resilience, said it may need to introduce hosepipe restrictions "due to the long, continuous hot and dry weather and lack of rain over the spring and summer".

He said: "Currently we are not in a hosepipe ban, and the desalination plant is not in use.

"We are, however, closer than we were at the start of the month to turning the desalination plant on and may yet need to introduce a hosepipe ban."

Jersey Water said it used historical reservoir and drought data to set a threshold to help it determine when it would need to turn on its desalination plant.

Bowden said: "We have a very finite capacity in our reservoirs - when everything is full, we have enough for 120 days supply for the island.

"We watch it very closely, we monitor the levels continuously and we are very close to the desalination plant start line and we're also quite close to moving into hosepipe restrictions, but we're not quite there yet."

The utility service said reservoirs often were not at their lowest level until October and Bowden said if the island didn't get "sufficient rain before the end of the year, it could put us in a difficult position going into 2027".

He said: "We are continuing to monitor the situation very closely - with rain forecast this week, we're hopeful this will help ease some pressure on our water supply."

Jersey Water said the island's highest water use in one day was 25.409 million litres (5.589 million gallons) on Sunday 5 July, which is described as "not far off the highest daily amount recorded for the past 10 years" of 25.854 million litres (5.687 million gallons) on Tuesday 18 July 2017.

Bowden asked islanders to "be mindful of their non-essential water use and to change their daily habits to help reduce demand on the island's water supplies".

"Every litre we can save now will preserve our critical supply, save money on customers' bills and reduce the likelihood of needing restrictions this year."

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