The following excerpt is from an independent news reporter visiting in 2010
https://fresnoalliance.com/whose-water-our-water/
https://fresnoalliance.com/whose-water-our-water/
Water Management-or Mismanagement-in Canada and California
They say water is the new oil-the likely cause of future wars, and some current wars as well. Everywhere in the world water is an issue one way or another-even in rain-drenched parts of Canada.
I had the privilege of attending a two-day Canadian water conference at the end of May. Remembering the successful water forum we had held at Fresno City College last March, I thought it would be worth looking at the similarities and the differences.
Water Issues in Canada
The issues faced by the Canadians are not quite the same as ours. The water conference, titled “Your Water, Your Future,” was held in Nanaimo on the east coast of Vancouver Island. I am used to Fresno, where we get a little more than 11 inches of rain in a year; parts of Vancouver Island get 135 inches of rain per year. Sometimes Californians cast a longing eye on all that Canadian water, wondering how they might get their hands on some of it to relieve drought-stricken California.
A word of warning Californians-the Canadians are not too happy about the idea of shipping their water southward because of the damage it would cause to the Canadian ecosystem. Some parts of British Columbia are already experiencing saltwater intrusion into the aquifers because the aquifers are being overused. In a way, it is just a larger version of the fight in California over whether to ship northern California water to Los Angeles, with all the environmental effects that has on the north.
Setting aside the issue of potential water exports, Canadians are already having serious problems of their own with the water even as they hang onto it. Don’t think quantity-think quality. The problem for many Canadians is trying to keep their water clean enough to drink.
How to Destroy a Watershed
The conference agenda included a tour of the watershed for the drinking water of nearby Parksville. I was appalled. No one who went on the tour would ever again want to touch their lips to a glass of Parksville water-even after it has been treated with chlorine.
We toured the watershed by bus, which was quite easy to do because there are lots of streets and roads crisscrossing it. There are streets everywhere because people are building houses and are living right in the middle of the watershed. Whatever pesticides and fertilizers these people use on their landscaping pass right through the soil and into the water, which drains directly into a nearby shallow aquifer. Even more troubling, there is no sewer system so people’s septic tanks leech into the same aquifer.
That is not the worst of it. As we drove across the watershed, we saw some unbelievable sources of contamination. There is a cemetery next to a creek that flows toward the waterworks. There is a large pig farm with two huge piles of manure; the farm is about 100 feet from a ditch that drains toward the drinking-water pumps. There are also three auto wreckers in the watershed, all leaking various types of fluid into the shallow aquifer. There is a former sand and gravel operation that has since been converted into a landfill dump, right down close to the waterworks; who knows what leeches into the groundwater from the dump.
Here is the background to all of that. Based on an anti-regulatory philosophy, a conscious choice was made in Parksville that the area would have little in the way of regulation. Both individuals and commercial interests can do just about whatever they want. Well, if you ever want to see what unregulated economic activity can lead to, come to Parksville.
The result is a mess. The drinking water is highly polluted. The organic pollutants can be neutralized, to a degree, by adding lots of chlorine to the water. That creates its own problems, because as the chlorine breaks down the organic matter, new toxic substances are formed. Meanwhile, the chlorine does nothing to remove the battery acid, gasoline, antifreeze and such that is coming from the auto wreckers. From the dump, there likely is a virtual witch’s brew of toxic substances.
The water is not treated to remove these other toxic substances; it is only treated with chlorine. As a result, people are starting to get sick, and for the most part they don’t know why. There are cancer clusters developing-but, as usual, it is hard to prove the cause of a cancer cluster.
Sadly, even if they were able to prove that the water was the problem, there would be no one that could be held accountable. The cemetery, the pig farm, the auto wreckers, the landfill-none of them are violating any regulations, so technically none of them are doing anything wrong. The negative effects on the population are treated as unavoidable collateral damage. What a callous way to run a community.
Parksville is a particularly blatant example of mismanagement of a watershed, but it is not alone. The city of Nanaimo itself, where the conference was being held, has a compromised watershed. The watershed is not owned by the city, but is privately owned by logging interests-the biggest of them being Island Timberlands.
The timber companies are clear-cutting the watershed, causing all sorts of issues for the water. The soil is torn up by the logging operations and much of it is washed downstream, which doesn’t help the water quality at all. A bigger problem may be the toxic fertilizers they use as they replant the forest with the goal of harvesting the second-growth lumber as soon as possible. What will happen as these fertilizers make their way into the water draining from these clear-cut fields? No one knows yet, but it looks very much like a disaster waiting to happen.
They say water is the new oil-the likely cause of future wars, and some current wars as well. Everywhere in the world water is an issue one way or another-even in rain-drenched parts of Canada.
I had the privilege of attending a two-day Canadian water conference at the end of May. Remembering the successful water forum we had held at Fresno City College last March, I thought it would be worth looking at the similarities and the differences.
Water Issues in Canada
The issues faced by the Canadians are not quite the same as ours. The water conference, titled “Your Water, Your Future,” was held in Nanaimo on the east coast of Vancouver Island. I am used to Fresno, where we get a little more than 11 inches of rain in a year; parts of Vancouver Island get 135 inches of rain per year. Sometimes Californians cast a longing eye on all that Canadian water, wondering how they might get their hands on some of it to relieve drought-stricken California.
A word of warning Californians-the Canadians are not too happy about the idea of shipping their water southward because of the damage it would cause to the Canadian ecosystem. Some parts of British Columbia are already experiencing saltwater intrusion into the aquifers because the aquifers are being overused. In a way, it is just a larger version of the fight in California over whether to ship northern California water to Los Angeles, with all the environmental effects that has on the north.
Setting aside the issue of potential water exports, Canadians are already having serious problems of their own with the water even as they hang onto it. Don’t think quantity-think quality. The problem for many Canadians is trying to keep their water clean enough to drink.
How to Destroy a Watershed
The conference agenda included a tour of the watershed for the drinking water of nearby Parksville. I was appalled. No one who went on the tour would ever again want to touch their lips to a glass of Parksville water-even after it has been treated with chlorine.
We toured the watershed by bus, which was quite easy to do because there are lots of streets and roads crisscrossing it. There are streets everywhere because people are building houses and are living right in the middle of the watershed. Whatever pesticides and fertilizers these people use on their landscaping pass right through the soil and into the water, which drains directly into a nearby shallow aquifer. Even more troubling, there is no sewer system so people’s septic tanks leech into the same aquifer.
That is not the worst of it. As we drove across the watershed, we saw some unbelievable sources of contamination. There is a cemetery next to a creek that flows toward the waterworks. There is a large pig farm with two huge piles of manure; the farm is about 100 feet from a ditch that drains toward the drinking-water pumps. There are also three auto wreckers in the watershed, all leaking various types of fluid into the shallow aquifer. There is a former sand and gravel operation that has since been converted into a landfill dump, right down close to the waterworks; who knows what leeches into the groundwater from the dump.
Here is the background to all of that. Based on an anti-regulatory philosophy, a conscious choice was made in Parksville that the area would have little in the way of regulation. Both individuals and commercial interests can do just about whatever they want. Well, if you ever want to see what unregulated economic activity can lead to, come to Parksville.
The result is a mess. The drinking water is highly polluted. The organic pollutants can be neutralized, to a degree, by adding lots of chlorine to the water. That creates its own problems, because as the chlorine breaks down the organic matter, new toxic substances are formed. Meanwhile, the chlorine does nothing to remove the battery acid, gasoline, antifreeze and such that is coming from the auto wreckers. From the dump, there likely is a virtual witch’s brew of toxic substances.
The water is not treated to remove these other toxic substances; it is only treated with chlorine. As a result, people are starting to get sick, and for the most part they don’t know why. There are cancer clusters developing-but, as usual, it is hard to prove the cause of a cancer cluster.
Sadly, even if they were able to prove that the water was the problem, there would be no one that could be held accountable. The cemetery, the pig farm, the auto wreckers, the landfill-none of them are violating any regulations, so technically none of them are doing anything wrong. The negative effects on the population are treated as unavoidable collateral damage. What a callous way to run a community.
Parksville is a particularly blatant example of mismanagement of a watershed, but it is not alone. The city of Nanaimo itself, where the conference was being held, has a compromised watershed. The watershed is not owned by the city, but is privately owned by logging interests-the biggest of them being Island Timberlands.
The timber companies are clear-cutting the watershed, causing all sorts of issues for the water. The soil is torn up by the logging operations and much of it is washed downstream, which doesn’t help the water quality at all. A bigger problem may be the toxic fertilizers they use as they replant the forest with the goal of harvesting the second-growth lumber as soon as possible. What will happen as these fertilizers make their way into the water draining from these clear-cut fields? No one knows yet, but it looks very much like a disaster waiting to happen.
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