Westlock is asking everyone in town to cut back on water use right now after days of heavy rain pushed the community’s wastewater system to its limit. The Town issued an urgent public notice Sunday afternoon telling residents to stop all non-essential water use immediately—that means no showers, no laundry, and no running the dishwasher until things improve.
The problem started when an estimated 80 to 100 millimetres of rain fell across the region, sending about three times the average daily flow into the wastewater lagoon. Robin Benoit, the Town’s director of operations, explained the system’s front-end treatment is built to handle 4,550 cubic metres a day, but Sunday’s rainfall brought roughly 5,700 cubic metres into the system. That forced an overflow into a secondary storage cell to prevent a larger backup.
“Everything that came from the town ended up in the lagoon and the front end, which is sort of the pre-treatment and settlement, it overflowed,” Benoit said. Crews are now pumping water between storage cells to relieve pressure, and the system is expected to return to normal within 72 hours. The advisory was lifted Monday afternoon, June 22, 2026, though the system is still recovering.
Environment Canada had issued a rainfall warning for the area, forecasting storm totals between 75 and 150 millimetres. Westlock was not alone—Morinville, Barrhead, Stony Plain, Beaumont, and St. Albert all posted similar water conservation notices over the weekend as the same weather system strained infrastructure across central Alberta.
Benoit said the town has plans for future upgrades to handle these kinds of capacity issues, with work potentially starting as early as next year. He noted this is not the first time heavy rain has overwhelmed the system, pointing to a similar event back in 2016.
