Orange residents will enjoy a two-weekend break from water restrictions following a decision at this week’s Council meeting.
Tuesday night’s meeting approved a motion from Councillors Glenn Taylor and Jeff Whitton to ease the current Permanent Water Saving Standards for two weekends only so that residents could spring-clean external household hard surfaces such as windows and paving.
MILESTONE: Water flows over the spillway at Spring Creek Dam.
The two weekends are 9/10 October and 16/17 October.
Orange Mayor Reg Kidd said it was an ideal time for the one-off cleaning opportunities, because the city’s water supplies were in a good position.
“There’s water flowing over the dam walls at all of Orange’s water supply dams,” Cr Reg Kidd said. “It’s an ideal time to tackle a once-a-year clean-up outdoors.”
Deputy Mayor Cr Glenn Taylor said Orange residents had dealt with water restrictions very responsibly in the past.
“I’m proud of the way the Orange community worked with our water restrictions throughout the drought,” Cr Glenn Taylor said. “That fantastic response gave us some of the lowest residential water use anywhere in Australia. Now’s the time to reward people for their efforts.”
Orange City Council’s Infrastructure Committee chair, Cr Jeff Whitton is urging the community to be sensible with their water use during the two weekends.
“Council has recognised the long-term need to be responsible with the amount of water we use,” Cr Jeff Whitton said. “We’ve adopted the new package of permanent water saving standards, even though water is overflowing our dam walls. It’s sensible to use less water in a dry country like Australia. If people are washing down windows or paving, it would be great if they could use high-pressure sprays that get a better result while using less water.”
