SPOKANE, Wash. — If you’ve been downtown recently you might have noticed just how slow the water flows through Riverfront Park. Now, those low flows on the Spokane River have triggered new water restrictions in the City of Spokane.
Our Verify team looks at what these Level II restrictions mean for your water usage.
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What triggers Level II water restrictions?
The Spokane City Council passed a Drought Response Measures Ordinance in 2022. It has two levels.
The first is a water conservation effort that is in effect every summer.
The second level is a drought response which kicks in when the Spokane River falls below 1,000 cubic feet per second (CFS) at the monitoring location at Lower Crossing. Data from USGS shows the Spokane River flow dropped below 1,000 CFS on the morning of July 24th and has stayed below that level.
The low flow has triggered Level II water restrictions.
What are the water restrictions?
Level I
- In effect every year between June 1 - October 1:
- No watering of outdoor vegetation between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
- Watering is limited to four days per week
- Suggested limit of a total watering time of 2 hours per day
- Suggested prohibition on using water to wash hardscapes like sidewalks, driveways, and decks
Level II
- In effect when the flow in the Spokane River is predicted to fall below 1,000 cfs any time between June 1 – October 1 and the Mayor or a majority of the City Council declares a drought emergency:
- No watering of outdoor vegetation between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
- Watering is limited to two days per week
- Limit of a total watering time of 2 hours per day
- No using water to wash hardscapes like sidewalks, driveways, and decks
What are the penalties?
At this point, there are no penalties for people who don’t follow the rules. At the time the council passed the ordinance, it was agreed that there would not be any enforcement of the conservation measures for at least two summers. There are also no financial consequences for non-compliance right now.
The city council could revisit enforcement and penalties before the summer of 2024.
Are there exemptions?
There are several exemptions available for water restrictions. For example, the Parks Department can request exemptions for the purposes of watering trees, watering the remaining parks with non-automated irrigation systems, allowing for the establishment of newly-planted landscapes, mitigating fire risk in wildland-urban interface areas, operating pools and splash pads, and operating public golf courses/sports program facilities.
Residents of Spokane can also receive exemptions for the purposes of watering community/personal vegetable gardens, trees located either within the public right-of-way or on private property, to allow for the establishment of newly-planted landscapes, or in wildland-urban interface areas to mitigate wildfire risk.
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