Six until nine and four until seven. Irrigation from the standpipes stops, the plot tanks and the two east wells carry the plots, and the delivery request goes in early this year.
The dry months arrangement starts on the first of February, as it does every year, and it is the same arrangement the growers agreed at the meeting three years ago.
Standpipe hours. Six until nine in the morning, four until seven in the evening. The four standpipes run on those hours and are shut in between, which is what makes the level last.
Irrigation. No irrigation from the standpipes at all from the first of February. The plots are carried by the plot tanks and the two wells at the east end. This is the part that costs the growers something real, and it was proposed by the growers themselves rather than by the council, because a plot can be watered from a well and a household cannot drink from one.
Households with a tank still on a good level are asked to leave the standpipes to households that have none. There is no way to enforce that and it has worked every year, entirely because it gets said out loud at a meeting where everybody is in the room.
The delivery request. In the bad year the council asked for a water delivery in the third week of March, when the standpipes were already down to four hours, and it arrived in April. We have learned from that. This year the request goes in during the first week of February, before there is a shortage to report, and the council will publish the date it was sent and the date of every reply on the noticeboard. If it is refused because there is no shortage yet, we will publish that too.
Tanks. Eleven household tanks have been repaired or replaced out of the maintenance budget in two years. If your tank, gutter or first flush diverter is not working, come to the office in January rather than in March. A tank fixed in January catches the last of the rain. A tank fixed in March catches nothing.
And one thing worth repeating every year. The first water off a roof after a dry spell carries dust and salt and will spoil a full tank. That is what the diverter is for, it needs emptying, and about a third of them have never been emptied since they were installed.
