About 40 environmentalists packed the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) boardroom last week to show their opposition to any measures that would further draw down Chapman Lake.
“Lowering the water level is why we’re here, because we don’t think it’s advisable,” George Smith of the Tetrahedron Alliance told the SCRD’s infrastructure services committee Sept. 4.
In a joint presentation, Smith and Jason Herz, chair of the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association (SCCA), urged directors to explore more effective and less ecologically damaging ways to upgrade the regional water system, “rather than installing floating pumps, siphons, tunnels, dredging or other changes.”
Currently during the summer, 60 metres of subsurface lake bottom can become exposed shores in the low slope areas — representing about seven hectares (17 acres) of lakebed, Smith and Herz said in their report to the committee.
“This is before further drawdown caused by the proposed changes,” they said. “The project will further diminish the environmental integrity of this basin, effectively turning the lake at the core of Tetrahedron Provincial Park into an ecologically unstable, visually and audibly degraded reservoir.”
A floating pump station that could draw the lake down by another three metres was one option included in the SCRD’s comprehensive regional water plan adopted last year. The board, however, did not commit to that option and directed staff to explore other methods.
In a letter to Smith in June, Bryan Shoji, the SCRD’s general manager of infrastructure services, said the consulting firm Opus DaytonKnight was hired to review other drawdown options, including a siphon, lowering the channel and outlet structure, or micro-tunneling a new outlet structure.
Instead of drawing down the lake, Smith and Herz recommended a series of measures, many of them included in the regional water plan for eventual implementation:
• A ban on watering lawns and pressure-washing driveways from June 1 to Oct. 31.
• Water metering, without penalizing people for growing food.
• Upgrading the water treatment plant.
• Aggressively pursuing construction of a new storage reservoir.
• Developing strategies to utilize grey water.
• Implementing SCRD support for rainwater collection technology.
Herz said proposals to draw down the lake have appeared many times since Chapman Lake was originally dammed in 1965.
“Each time it’s appeared, the SCCA has opposed it and it has been essentially set aside, and yet it reappears once again to draw on our energies and your time,” he said.
Smith said the Sunshine Coast has less biodiversity protection than any other forest district in B.C., at about three per cent, “so it’s really important that we maintain that.”
As an example of the area’s biodiversity, Smith said a grizzly bear sow and cub were recently found in the Tetrahedron, and mountain goats have been seen just below the Chapman Creek dam.
Directors agreed to have the information presented by Smith and Herz included in the technical report on drawdown options expected this fall.
