Grass at the cemetery and hanging baskets downtown have been casualties of two separate irrigation failures in Castlegar.
Operations manager Samuel Shine this week told city council this week that the cemetery is in “poor condition” after the irrigation system that serves two-thirds of it “completely failed.”
“The grass died, causing it to look pretty unhealthy,” he said.
They plan to spend $150,000 from their capital fund on repairs, although they are still working on the details.
At the same time, an irrigation system near the courthouse also failed, which meant 45 hanging baskets didn’t get watered.
“We just don’t have the resources to manually maintain them if they’re not on an irrigation system,” Shine said, adding they are leaning toward removing them.
Repairing the system would be both costly and very labour intensive, he said, involving removing sidewalks and roads and taking down mature trees.
