'Three simple steps' to protect our water supply as reservoir levels drop

NI Water say the 'raw water supply' at Mid Ulster District Council area's main sources - Lough Fea and Lough Neagh - Moyola and Caster Bay Water Treatment Works - has dropped. Lough Fea is 40.3 per cent lower than compared this time last year.

NI Water says everyone needs to act now to help protect the water supply with reservoir levels are dropping and household demand is still high.

Saving water is easy. Everyone can take three steps which will save more than 30 litres of water per day.

If every one of us:

1. Shortened our shower by 1 min this would save 7 litres per day;

2. Turned off the tap when brushing our teeth this would save 12 litres a day

3. Put a jug in the fridge instead of running the tap (6 glasses of water), this would save

12 litres a day.

This would mean a saving of over 30 litres per person! These small changes will make a big difference to our water storage levels to ensure there is enough water for the essentials.

For example, if everyone who gets their water from Lough Fea Reservoir which serves large parts of Belfast, saved just 30 litres per day, it could provide an extra 3 days storage for that

reservoir.

This would help keep reservoir levels up until there is enough rain again.

Maynard Cousley, Head of Water Supply at NI Water said: “The Met Office has confirmed that this spring was the second driest since the beginning of the twentieth century.

"In the spring of 2019 we experienced 297mm of rainfall, this spring we only had 126mm – a reduction of almost 60%.

“Small bursts of rain are not enough to bring reservoir levels back up. A period of reasonably wet weather is required before we would see a significant change in the levels of most of our reservoirs.

“There is a map on niwater.com which shows the reservoirs that service areas throughout Northern Ireland. This will be updated weekly and is a great resource for people to see where their water comes from and the stress some of the reservoirs are currently under.

"We need to remember, even if a reservoir is 70% full at the moment, we are only at the start of the summer. The reservoir statistics now are usually those that we would expect to see at the end of a dry summer, not the beginning.

“We want to make sure there is enough water until we get the rain we need. At the moment no one can predict when that might be. Until then, please follow the ‘3 steps to save 30’ and save water where you can.”