The mandatory water restriction for the entire City of Saskatoon ended at 10 p.m. Thursday night. Normal water use is once again allowed.

Word of the mandatory restriction came down just before noon Thursday after sand got into the intake at the Water Treatment Plant.

Russ Munro, Director of Saskatoon Water, says they are investigating why the sand got into the intakes. He says the last time it happened was in 2011 when there were very high flows in the river but that isn’t the case this time around.

“This is a little bit unexpected, we’ll say. But we’re going to continue to investigate. We do have a sandy graded river, there’s lots of sandbars, they do move and it’s possible one has moved in close to our intake. And although the hydraulics are designed to prevent that from becoming a problem, you know maybe there’s something else going on and we’re going to continue to look at it.”

The Water Treatment Plant intake is on the east bank of the river across from the Queen Elizabeth Power Station in Saskatoon.

To facilitate a switch to the back-up intake at the plant, the City Officials had requested all unnecessary use of water cease like bathing, washing cars or doing several loads of laundry but you could still use water for hand washing, drinking, and cleaning dishes.