Guernsey Water said last week’s rain had provided only a short-term boost, and that the island was still using far more water than it was collecting.
Reservoirs are currently 74.4% full. Storage levels have been falling by around 2% a week, though last week’s rain slowed that decline to 1.5%.
Rainfall on Wednesday last week totalled 6mm, making it the wettest day since 1 June and more than fell in the whole of July, but it contributed the equivalent of just 17 hours of island-wide demand.
In the past week, the utility collected 24m. litres of water but supplied 92.4m. litres to customers, a deficit of 68.4m. litres. Over the past five months, reservoir levels have risen in only two weeks, and those gains amounted to less than two days’ worth of island demand.
Despite the rain, Guernsey has had only around a third of the average rainfall expected in August, on top of months of very dry conditions. Storage levels are 10% below the seasonal average – around 400m. litres, or roughly a month’s worth of summer usage.
‘The rain we’ve seen recently has certainly helped and we’re always pleased to see water flowing into our reservoirs,’ said water quality risk manager Daffyd Griffiths. ‘But as we’d expect for this time of year, we’re still using substantially more water than we’re collecting.’
Mr Griffiths said the utility was not currently considering a hosepipe ban, but that reducing demand now would help preserve supplies and build resilience if dry conditions continued.
Islanders are being encouraged to take shorter showers, avoid unnecessary hosepipe use, delay washing cars where possible and reuse water around the home and garden.
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