oct
news

Events of interest

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Saturday, Oct 18, Water is Love: Ripples of Regeneration film screening, 7 - 9 pm, followed by a panel of local watershed protectors. Broad View United Church, 3703 St. Aidan’s St., Victoria. By donation at the door.

 

Wednesday, Oct 22, 12-1 pm, at the Legislature, Save Goldstream rally. Don’t miss this opportunity to oppose a senseless project to expand the highway at Goldstream Park, demolishing 700 trees, threatening an important salmon stream, and trampling over the rights of the WSÁNEĆ Nation. Background information here  Volunteers are still needed. To help, contact em@wildernesscommittee.org

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Heads Up!  Rebates for Rainwater Tanks

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A small pilot program will be offering rebates for the purchase of water tanks for rainwater harvesting. The 606 Water Group has convinced our Regional Director, Al Wickheim, that rainwater harvesting and water storage will be part of our future: it did not take much convincing.  

 

Director Wickheim has offered a Community Grant in Aid to administer in support of rainwater harvesting.  This will be a very small program offering a limited number of rebates for the purchase of a storage tank as part of a rainwater harvesting set up. The tank must be purchased for a new system, and the property must be dependent on a well or surface water license for water.

 

For more information, write to the 606 Water Group at 606watergroup@gmail.com , check out the 606 Water Group website at 606water.ca

 

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Some statistics

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2025-10-12-water-watch-combined-websitepdf 

Electoral Area Water Restrictions | Capital Regional District

At the end of the third week of October, the gauge at Sooke Lake measured 64% of the average rainfall for the period September 1 to October 12. The average is calculated from data 1914 to 2024. Sooke Lake is at 63.2% of “full storage”. It is usual for the lake to be at a low of around 65% at the end of November, but 63% in mid-October is not “usual”. Although Stage 1 water restrictions have been lifted for those on the CRD’s Integrated Water System, smaller systems managed by the CRD in the Electoral Areas have had Stage 1 restrictions extended “until further notice” or moved on to Stage 2 restrictions. The BC Drought Information Portal indicates “no level of drought” for the * East Coast of Vancouver Island “basin” since the beginning of October. 

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* More about the BC Drought Information Portal:

Heather muses on the maps, which are confusing

 

Thinking about the fish kill reported in the 606 Water Group September newsletter, I decided to look more closely at the BC Drought Information Portal.  What could the waterworks people in Nelson have known about Anderson Creek? What didn’t I know about the Drought Portal?

 

My further research resulted in some surprises. According to the map of BC showing the “basins” being reported on, the West Coast of Vancouver Island begins at Jordan River. That is where the boundary between the “East Coast” and the “West Coast” is drawn. I admit to being confused. 

 

Our chunk of rock lying east west along the Salish Sea does not lend itself to “basins”.  Our streams and lakes are arranged more like “chutes” than basins. I suppose the boundary follows some height of land, but then, I previously supposed that Sooke and the Western Communities would be on the West Coast.  But no, they are included inside the boundary for the East Coast of Vancouver Island “basin.”

 

Also, to my surprise, the East Coast “ends” just north of Sayward: the whole north of Vancouver Island is included in calculations for what is shown as the West Coast “basin”. That “basin” includes the wettest place in North America: Hucuktlis Lake, pronounced “Who chook tlis”. It was formerly known as “Henderson Lake”. The average rainfall there is 6900 mm [22.6 feet] per year, with a record of 9300 mm [30.5 feet] in 1997.

 

Some of the data sources for the Drought Portal are the “Water Survey of Canada stream gauges, the Provincial Groundwater Observation Well Network, and the River Forecast Centre”. The rivers nearest Sooke and the Western Communities for which forecasts are available are the San Juan River (West Coast basin) and the Koksilah River (East Coast Basin).

 

No river closer to our communities has a Water Survey of Canada stream gauge. The local water supply in that portion of the CRD which lies over Aquifer 606 has little to do with the weather in Port Renfrew or at Cowichan Station. The only active observation wells are the two on Phillips Road in Sooke. The 606 Water Group will continue to look for and advocate for more refined information on rainfall and water supply for our 606 communities. 

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More questions than answers:

Lynn wonders why? And why not?

 

Admittedly this is a bit of a rant. We have been rereading and continuing to follow some of the stories from last month’s newsletter and the conclusion is that we all need to be more water conscious and conscientious. Less than 3% of all the water on earth is fresh water and the majority of that is locked up in glaciers and ice caps. Of that “less than 3%” which is not locked into iciness, about 30 % is in the ground—known as groundwater—with a very small portion in wetlands, rivers and lakes. Of the total fresh water on earth, only 1% is readily available for human use and we are polluting it faster than nature can clean it through the water cycle and by filtering water through soils. The human population is not getting smaller, the planet is heating up, and rainfall is becoming perilously unpredictable: meanwhile the demand for fresh water in the industrial world increases.

 

Desalination plants are not the answer since the salts extracted end up being dumped back into the ocean or onto the land near the desalination plants and make the sea and land too salty for life. Such plants are also very expensive to build and operate.

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On to expensive water

We are still trying to follow the story of Sage Mesa’s failing water system.

https://www.pentictonherald.ca/news/article_4b888706-9aee-40c1-8287-8a38ed7e2d92.html 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sage-mesa-residents-face-33-million-waterline-repair-bill-1.7620289

https://www.rdos.bc.ca/assets/Uploads/20210519-SageMesa2020AnnualWaterQualityRptFinal3.pdf

20240402-RPT-SageMesaWaterAnnualReport2023Final.pdf

 

The short version is that 242 or so residents of this suburb of Penticton are on a privately owned water system and the water, which comes from Okanagan Lake, is so bad part of the system has been under a Boil Water Notice since 2019. The water is treated with chlorine but there are no filtering screens so any UV light purification that may be installed to “kill the bugs” won’t penetrate the murkiness. The system has been in operation for over 60 years and is privately owned. In 1990, it was put under the supervision of the provincial water comptroller and subsequently, under the management of the Ministry of Water and Natural Resources with the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) responsible for day-to-day operations. In the annual report on the system for 2023, “work continued between the Province, the water system owner and the RDOS on planning for upgrading the Sage Mesa water system to meet the provincial Drinking Water Treatment Objectives for Surface Water”.  And finally, the private owner has agreed to sell the system to the Regional District. 

 

The Ministry told CBC News that it has no role in funding the system. "At this time, Sage Mesa remains privately owned and managed by the Comptroller of Water Rights. As private companies, private water utilities are responsible for independently maintaining infrastructure and ensuring the continued delivery of water services."  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sage-mesa-residents-face-33-million-waterline-repair-bill-1.7620289 

 

Now the system is so bad it looks like it will cost in the area of $33 million to fix it and the residents want the province to foot the bill. Granted the system has been under the management of the Regional District and the Ministry for years but the news articles state that Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen and Interior Health have been issuing warnings about the deteriorating state of the system. 

 

More bureaucracy is needed to complete the transfer of ownership and have the water users agree to the cost of repairs. As a publicly owned system, grants may be secured to help with the cost of upgrading the system. 

 

Were people not listening or going to meetings? Were they asked to pay higher rates for repairs and a reserve fund for maintenance and future repairs and were against paying higher rates? They are facing higher rates now and still face a big bill, which they want the province to pay. It seems to be like having a car for decades and not making sure the tires are good then having a crash and blaming the roads and wanting the province to pay for a new car with new tires.

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On to cheap water when it should not be and the long drought in Dawson Creek area

Pipelines are controversial, with the challenge of protecting our environment and managing industry and the economy. How about a $100 million pipeline for water to supply Dawson Creek, where the Kiskatinaw River supplying the town is running dry because of prolonged drought and years of fracking? The pipeline would bring water 50 kilometers from the already stressed Peace River. Designed to bring much in excess of the town’s current need, the plan includes selling the excess water to the people doing the fracking.  For two years, they have been barred from taking water from the Kiskatinaw, but nevertheless, they have managed to increase their use of fresh water for fracking each year. That is groundwater, which also supplies the rivers and natural ecosystems. Natural gas is money and jobs but water is life. We need to figure this out. Soon. 

https://www.thetyee.ca/News/2025/10/09/Fracking-Water-Demand-Soared-Northeast-BC/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email

 

People interested in water have long been frustrated by the shortage of potable water for domestic and agricultural use compared to the free flow of potable water at little cost for industries like fracking LNG. Stand.earth, an environmental organization, notes that the fracking industry pays $2.25 for every million litres of water used. Sooke residents pay $2.84 per cubic meter (1000 litres) or 10,000 times as much. Sooke residents also do not poison the lands and ground water like fracking does.

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A quick look back at the fish kill in Nelson

Fish deaths in Nelson after creek providing drinking water runs dry | Vancouver Sun

Granted it is far easier to see what did go wrong than to imagine it beforehand. No one planned for the need for emergency repairs on the water system but why was no one sent to see the state of the creeks still in use? The news reports that residents used more water than usual. Why were there no fan outs of emergency information to tell people to restrict water use for a while? What gives us the right, as a single species, to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of another species—and all of their future offspring—so we are not inconvenienced for a few hours?

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Carrying on with a little more about wetlands:

Bonnie

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There are several types of wetlands, these include: swamps, marshes, sloughs, bogs and fens. What differentiates them is their soil composition and plant life. Marshes, for example, are characterized by poorly drained mineral soils and by limited plant species dominated by grasses (sedges, reeds and rushes). Coastal marshes buffer and protect our coastlines from erosion and storm surges. They act as an interface between land and water and are home to the young of numerous species including coho salmon and cutthroat trout. Our tidal marshes are ever at the mercy of industry, development, invasive species (including non-migratory Canada geese) and pollution. We have lost 70% of our tidal marsh habitat!

 

There is a general lack of awareness about wetlands, and they have historically been given a bad rap. In agrarian societies, wetlands were (and are!) looked at as an impediment to agriculture – an obstacle to overcome. Hollywood portrayed swamps and bogs in a negative light, teaming with creatures of unknown origin, harmful to humans. In reality, Henry David Thoreau said it best: “I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of nature.” 

 

A great Ideas episode on CBC radio about wetlands: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/saving-wetlands-ecology-1.6617277 

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School based weather stations update

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Thank you to everyone who contacted UVic to request they continue to fund the school-based weather stations. Dr. Weaver let us know that UVic has decided that the person who works on them must be a UVic employee for   liability concerns but has yet to offer up any funding. So that is not an offer but a stalling tactic. Help us keep the pressure on by emailing vpr@uvic.ca and picsdir@uvic.ca with a courtesy copy to ajweaver@uvic.ca

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