Shareholders –
Please find attached a bit of an epistle disguised as a Water Restrictions update. I’ve had to flag my objective of no more than two pages as, in this edition, I offer a bit of reflection on the season so far and in particular the ‘management’ of the lake storage. As with most things, hindsight is a wonderful thing and, with that benefit, I identify a couple of key aspects that may have seen us able to extend the season by several weeks. Bottom line remains however – that without reasonable inflows through the summer season, our lake storage will not be able to provide 100% supply for a full season. The extended bottom line is that this has been an extraordinarily dry year.
It’s four weeks now since we shut off irrigation supply and since that time we have seen the lake continue to fall to within 50mm of zero before a series of small rain fronts resulted in, for the first time in 174 days, the lake actually increasing. We’ve crept up two metres but that only puts us at 3% storage. Our historical average for March is 76%.
We are endeavouring to provide another ‘round’ of irrigation (8-10 days under a 50% restriction regime) before soil temperatures drop too far and at present we are looking at the week after Easter. This is reliant on some further rain over the next two weeks to bolster the lake storage to around 10%. I would ask you all to please consider this in your planning and be prepared to respond to us of your requirements should we be in a position to resume irrigation.
Fairlie Lions have organised a social event for everyone this Friday 4pm at the Mackenzie Rugby Grounds – a great opportunity to get together for a fun and relaxing break. I would encourage you all to try and get along.
To read this newsletter, please download the PDF version here:
20150323 – Water Restriction Notice #11 – March 2015
