Tasman's Dry Weather Taskforce has issued the first water restrictions of the summer, with consent holders in the Motupiko and Rainy water management zones moving to stage one rationing from Monday 23 February.
Stage 1 rationing requires a 20% reduction from authorised weekly water use.
Recent rainfall across the district has been enough to avoid restrictions until now. As of Tuesday 17 February, both the Waimea and Wai-iti dams were full, while the Cobb dam sat at 90%.
Localised showers in Golden Bay and the Richmond and Waimea areas earlier this week did little to boost flows in the Motupiko River.
It remains the only zone where river levels have dropped below the consultation threshold of 400 litres per second.
By Tuesday morning, flows had fallen to 340 litres per second.
The long term forecast shows only minor rainfall over the next 10 to 14 days. With river flows typically falling by 10 to 15 litres per second each day, the Motupiko and Rainy zones are expected to reach the Stage 1 trigger point of 250 litres per second next week.
No other water management zones are affected by the restrictions. This includes other consent holders and council managed reticulated water supplies, which follow different criteria.
Council staff will continue to monitor river flows, groundwater and soil moisture over the coming days.
The Dry Weather Taskforce will review the situation on Tuesday 24 February to determine whether further measures are needed.
Groundwater and river flow data is available here.
