by Robie Liscomb

The university is doing its part to conserve water, and plans have been put in place to meet and exceed the Capital Regional District's stage 3 water-use restrictions, which went into effect April 2.

UVic facilities management has issued a comprehensive set of water conservation procedures that will reduce by over 80 per cent the amount of municipal water used to maintain campus grounds, thus conserving at least 100 million litres (roughly 30 million gallons) over the season, April through September.

Under the new conservation measures, no general lawn areas will be watered.

"We'll be using existing wells on campus as much as possible to provide the water needed to preserve areas such as the Finnerty Gardens and certain sports playing fields," says grounds manager Tony James, who drafted the procedures.

Bed watering will be reduced and done by hand unless well water is used. Playing fields on a sand bed will receive the minimum amount of water to keep them alive (the stadium, warm-up field, and Wallace field).

All proposed new plantings, landscaping or seeding are cancelled.

The university is also exploring with the appropriate authorities the possibility of re-using certain kinds of waste water, says James.

Among other water-saving measures, the Petch fountain, which is usually cleaned and refilled once every three or four weeks, will not be refilled after cleaning, and the University Club pond will not be flushed a procedure normally done every few weeks.