"We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one."
Jacques Yves Cousteau
Municipal water The Sooke Lake Reservoir in the Sooke Hills supplies fresh, 'piped' water to over 400,000 people from Sooke to Greater Victoria to Sidney. It is Southern Vancouver Island's primary water source. Learn more The Juan de Fuca Water Distribution System for the Western Communities is mapped here.
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watershed land
maps of Sooke
Sooke Area
Ayum Creek
King Creek
Sooke River
Veitch Creek
Wildwood Creek
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watershed flow
diagrams
Ayum Creek
King Creek
Sooke River
Veitch Creek
Wildwood Creek
Get to know your watershed
watersheds
We all live in one watershed or another where groundwater and surface water, such as rivers and lakes, drain into a larger body of water. Everything that we do on that land, therefore, affects the quality and quantity of the water bodies above and below ground. A healthy watershed slows and filters water within the landscape.
Most natural watersheds include mature forests and precipitation is naturally slowed and filtered as it progresses into the ground and surface water bodies. In areas that have been urbanized and have less permeable surfaces (ie paved roadways versus vegetation) water instead flows quickly straight into storm drains. Enroute, the water picks up any pollutants it encounters. Floods and erosion occur when the flow overwhelms the storm drain system.
When precipitation hits the ground it disperses: some water flows from the land to streams or lakes, some evaporates into the atmosphere, some is taken up by plants, and some water is absorbed into the ground. The water that seeps into the ground enters an unsaturated zone carrying on into a saturated zone, where it fills the interconnected spaces found in the sedimentary rock layer. This process aids in filtering the water, so generally speaking, the deeper the groundwater level – the cleaner the water. Aquifers are also identified as “confined” and “unconfined”.
An unconfined aquifer has a water table that is found above the initial impermeable layer below ground. Because this water source doesn't have an impermeable layer above it, it is susceptible to contamination from such things as landfill and agricultural leachates and highway water pollutants. A confined aquifer lies beneath an impermeable layer. The confining cover can cause groundwater to be under pressure. When the confining layer is punctured such as when a well is drilled through it, groundwater under pressure will rise through the borehole until it reaches the same level as the water table. This is known as an artesian well.
Wells are drilled into an aquifer and water is pumped out. When precipitation happens, it adds water or recharge into the porous rock of the aquifer. Recharge rates can vary from aquifer to aquifer, and in the case of an aquifer as extensive as Aquifer 606, there can be recharge fluctuations across the aquifer. When pumping water from a well, the recharge rate needs to be taken into consideration. Too aggressive pumping draws down the water in the aquifer and eventually causes a well to yield less and less water and potentially even run dry. Your pumping habits can even affect your neighbours, if you're drawing from the same aquifer.
Good to know!
There is only one active Observation Well on Aquifer 606. With the growing population and development to the west, additional monitoring wells need to be put in place in order to get a legitimate sense of water quantity and quality over time on Aquifer 606 and the other aquifers in the area. Under B.C.’s Water Sustainability Act, registered domestic groundwater users have priority over non-domestic users, so it's important to register your well!
aquifers
Groundwater is stored underground in aquifers. There are two classifications: consolidated and unconsolidated. Aquifer 606 is consolidated: water is stored in fissures in permeable/fractured
bedrock. It lies under the largest land area of all aquifers in the Capital Regional District. The productivity of the aquifer is considered low and recharge relies on surface water – precipitation as well as streams and rivers. This aquifer is very vulnerable to contamination from human activities at the surface. The majority of wells in the Western Communities are drawing from this aquifer. Unconsolidated aquifers, made up of sediments and gravel from the last ice age, lie over 606. Learn more
We take it for granted that when we turn on our taps we'll have a plentiful supply of good clean water. In the past, predictable snow and rainfall meant that our watersheds were replenished and we didn't give water much thought. But with a changing, warming climate and increasing demands on water, including from development and industry, we may be consuming faster than it can be replenished. Climate change is pushing rainfall into shorter midwinter periods and making summer rainfalls increasingly rare. Surface water is drying up and our underground water sources, aquifers, aren’t being fully recharged. Add to this the increasing demand from new developments and growth in population. As a result, households and businesses where the well is failing are forced to rely on water being trucked from a piped water system to meet basic needs.