The water supply level since the beginning of June on Lake Minnewasta in Morden has dropped a full foot.

On Tuesday, the City of Morden implemented its Extreme Drought Response Plan.

Samtokh Ramdhawa, Morden's Deputy City Manager of Operations says the current level of Lake Minnewasta is 8’ 11 below the full supply level. 8.5 feet below full supply level is the threshold that places the city in Extreme Drought Conditions, which was reached last week.

"At this level we have less than one year of supply left in the lake," said Ramdhawa. "We need to conserve more..."

2 million litres of water is taken from the lake each day, and 400,000 litres a day from the Pembina Valley Water Co-op, totaling 2.4 million litres of water being used a day by City of Morden residents.

Ramdhawa says the water supply levels on Lake Minnewasta dropped to about the same levels in 1991/92, during a drought that persisted for roughly 2 years. However, this time around the situation is very different, as the community's population has grown two to three times in size. "We are almost using double the volumes we were using at that time, so it is a problem."