Morinville has had a water conservation plan in place for five years. Over that time, it has offered a toilet rebate program to encourage its 10,000 citizens to replace their old toilets. Older toilets can use up seven gallons of water per flush; eco-friendly models use as little as 1.3 gallons. About 85 households took advantage of the replacement rebate.
The town also piggybacked on a Sturgeon County initiative to get people to collect rain water in barrels, and it offered households water-saving, indoor and outdoor fixtures such as tap aerators and faucets to reduce water flow. The council has also approved construction of a third town reservoir.
Two weeks ago, Morinville received a call from Strathcona County, which manages the water supply, to reduce water consumption to just absolutely necessary consumption. That directive has since been lifted, but it demonstrates that water availability can’t be taken for granted.
On May 19, as part of its continuing forward-thinking approach to water use, Morinville is presenting an information session on xeriscaping, a type of gardening that minimizes water use. The session is open to anyone, regardless of where they live.
Claude Valcourt, the town’s director of public works, says Morinville town council, as part of its plan, directed his department to continue looking for ways to educate the public on good water management techniques, and xeriscape gardening is one such method.
“Water conservation is not just about saving water through toilet rebates, which we’ve done, or rain barrels. It’s also to reduce the use of water through plants that need less water,” Valcourt says.
The session will be presented by John Buchko, a professional environmental planner and landscape architect who has done work for Morinville in the past. Buchko says his hour and half program, including a Q and A, will focus on ways people can landscape their property attractively and save money on the water bill at the same time.
“The way in which we landscape our yard, everything from water conservation practices, the types of plants we select, the way we go about planting them, and the way we water them, it’s a series of techniques.”
Xeriscaping concepts have been around for decades, he says, but many people are afraid of changing their approach to landscaping. They’re still attached to their lawns.
“It’s not a new science. The (landscaping) industry has been doing this for decades, but it’s something a lot of people have been intimidated by, assuming that when you do this, you’re selecting nothing but a bunch of cactus plants for your yard.”
The purpose of his presentation is “to really to take away the myths of what xeriscaping is. … it is beautiful, and it’s something people can do to conserve water within their yards.”
Besides doing landscape planning professionally, mainly for municipalities, Buchko has a personal interest in xeriscaping, and he will show slides of what he’s done with his own acreage in Parkland County.
He lives in the dunes area of the county, where there are no wells and water needs to be imported. He collects water in cisterns year around, and he’s applied xeriscaping concepts to his landscaping, as well.
“One of the key things with xeriscaping is to minimize the amount of landscape that requires water. It’s about rethinking the amount of lawn we have. It’s not about sacrificing the quality or the greenness of your lawn; it’s about rethinking the amount and the scale of the lawn grass that occupies your yard.”
He says the trick is knowing what plants work best in such gardens, and doing a little planning to make water consumption efficient.
Planting such a garden calls for “organizing the plants in such a way that you’re watering less so you’re capturing water and maximizing the amount of water that’s put into certain plants, and organizing them so that you aren’t dispersing excess water.”
He is impressed with Morinville’s determination to education its population about the need to use water consciously.
“Morinville hasn’t set a target, per se, but they’re encouraging people inside and outside their home to maximize any water that is collected and to be very conscious of the water they use.
“Water is precious, and we do take for granted how much is available to us. A lot of communities are really looking at ways to expand their conservation strategies, not just the way the municipalities work, but how the residents use the water.”
The xeriscaping session runs from 7:00 to 8:30 on May 19 at the Morinville Community Cultural Centre, 9502-100 Ave.
