The City of Airdrie has announced that water restrictions that were implemented in the city on August 15, will be lifted.

"Effective [Tuesday] October 31, Airdrie will lift its outdoor water use restrictions, in line with The City of Calgary. Lower temperatures and seasonal changes have stabilized water demand, which isn't expected to rise. We thank our residents and businesses for respecting water restrictions over the last two months," The City stated on social media.

According to The City, between August and October water use in Airdrie decreased by a total of 9,218,180 litres year over year.

"This would be the equivalent of filling all the pools at Genesis Place roughly seven times. 

The announcement follows suit after Calgary also announced that effective, Tuesday, October 31, they too would be ending water restrictions.

"The City of Calgary is lifting city-wide outdoor water use restrictions and returning the drought monitoring dial to dry conditions. Due to decreasing temperatures and seasonal shifts in water use, demand has stabilized and is not forecasted to increase."

According to a media release by The City of Calgary, the water restrictions allowed for the saving of 1.5 billion litres of water, the equivalent of 606 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

"We want to thank all residents, businesses and regional customers for following outdoor water restrictions over the past two months. These efforts helped tremendously to reduce water demand during drought, which was caused by a low snowpack and early snowmelt, persistent hot, dry weather conditions and low flows on the Bow and Elbow Rivers."

However, City of Calgary officials reminded residents to continue to be mindful of water usage, despite the lifting of water restrictions. The City noted that this was the first time that The City of Calgary has required residents to reduce their outdoor water use due to drought, the Calgary region is prone to hot, dry summers.

"Our climate modelling tells us that Calgary will continue to experience more severe and frequent weather events such as drought in the future. Moving forward, The City will continue to monitor drought conditions (watershed, operational and regional conditions) and reduce its operational water use to further manage our available water supply. We will continue to work with our Regional partners, Alberta Environment and Protected Areas, TransAlta and the Downstream Irrigation Districts to manage water supply and demand along the Bow River."

Despite water restrictions being lifted in both Calgary and Airdrie, Nose Creek continues to be under a water shortage advisory. Province-wide there are 50 water shortage advisories, with at least 11 of those advisories in the Bow River Basin area. 

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