Mayor Pierre Kary is happy to announce the Town was granted authorization to hook-up well no. 8 following a series of emergency steps undertaken with the help of Soulanges MNA Lucie Charlebois. The work will begin sometime next week. The Mayor plans to announce a partial, but restrictive levying of the ban during the June 1st Council session, 2010 to allow some outdoor watering. The details of the levying and subsequent updates on the situation will be communicated to you by means of the local newspapers and the Town’s electronic newsletter.

Members of Council join the Mayor in thanking residents for their excellent collaboration. «So far, says the Mayor, and according to our well reports, residents have been very respectful of the ban. We really appreciate their collaboration and we hope we can continue to count on their support for the collective good.»

The City encourages residents to adopt more ecological and economical watering habits every day, especially in the summer. The water problem does not rest in its availability. Municipal wells supply ample water for indoor domestic needs but they cannot compete with the speed at which Quebecers use it for outdoor purposes, their ability to treat water and refill the reserve is not as expeditious. Quebecers are the 2^nd largest water consumers in the world (400 litres a day per person, against 150 litres a day per person in France). During summer, citizens of Quebec use 75 % of the water treated by their municipality for outdoor watering purposes!^¹ The City of Saint-Lazare, as any other responsible Quebec municipality, plans the addition of wells according to the Town’s growth curve and the residents’ domestic needs and not according to the summer’s outdoor watering needs. Paying the treatment of raw water to water lawns with potable water is a very expensive proposition few Quebec municipalities can afford! And even if they could, it would be irresponsible. Water is a non renewable resource! Because of this over consumption in the summer, prolonged absences of rain or the occasional unforeseeable well break require numerous municipalities decree a complete outdoor watering ban to protect their water reserve for domestic purposes and for safety reasons such as fighting fires and forest fires whose threats increase during drought (our city is exceptionally vulnerable because 70% of our territory is forested). It is currently the case for Vaudreuil-Dorion, Vaudreuil-sur-le-lac, Pincourt, Terrasse-Vaudreuil, Notre-dame de l'Île-Perrot,Trois-Rivières, Terrebonne, Boucherville, Saint Bruno-de-Montarville, Vieux-Longueuil, Saint-Hubert, Repentigny and Mascouche to name a few.

It is therefore important to choose more ecological and economical watering solutions. View home tips provided by other Saint-Lazare residents at ville.saint-lazare.qc.ca/watertips and share your tips with us!

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^¹ Réseau environnement

Water: residents share tips on how to wisely recycle water

Alternatives for pool filling and outdoor watering