Our water situation has become dire. It doesn’t accomplish anything to complain about what the SCRD should have done years ago. Rather than depending on the fragile Chapman Lake for 90%+ of regional water supply (completely unsustainable), diversification and conservation are the keys to solving our water issue. On the diversification side, the SCRD is working to acquire more supply and on the conservation side, studies have proven that water metering leads to significant and immediate reduction in water use. It stands to reason – with metering, people take steps to conserve water and all these individual steps lead to around 40 per cent less water use overall. Those who take conservation measures pay less – which is fair – and there can be separate measures established to help farms.
Elphinstone director Donna McMahon’s most recent newsletter is all about water and highly informative. You can sign up for it or see it on her website: everythingelphinstone.ca.
My household recently applied to the SCRD to receive information about our use; it’s easy to do – email infrastruture@scrd.ca and include your name, water account number and email address. We discovered we used an average of 292 litres per day in July (less in June but we had family visiting in early July). Granted there are only two of us and we switched over to outside watering from our rain barrel even before Stage 4, but it seems that the average 1,400 litres per day householders (residential not commercial) in the SCRD use, can easily be lowered.
Speaking of wasting water – someone phoned me on Sunday morning to say that there was water gushing on Chaster Road in front of Cedar Grove Elementary. I walked over to investigate and found that a nearby neighbour had already called the SCRD to report it. It appeared the main was broken and the man said that someone had been working on it the previous day. His ditches were filled with water and he thought it may well have been gushing all night! People from the SCRD arrived within two hours to shut off the main and commence repairs. I am told that the Chaster water main has broken several times recently, and is scheduled for replacement this fall. Altogether a scary occurrence in Stage 4 water restrictions!
Advance notice that the September meeting of the Elphinstone Community Association (ECA) will be on Wednesday, Sept. 22 at 7 pm. Note that this is later in the month than usual, scheduled to accommodate guest speaker Nicholas Simons. MLA Simons will be joining by Zoom; information will be available by contacting the ECA email at elphinstonecommunity19@gmail.com closer to the date.
Do you have a few hours to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity? They need people to help out sorting bottles and cans at the Gibsons Bottle Depot. If you can put in a short shift even once or twice a week, please email: volunteer@habitatsc.ca.
Note that Reed Road Forest is 120 acres, not 12 as reported in the previous column.
Have neighbourhood news? Let me know at: author.ggneilson@gmail.com.
