Splash ’n Shine Car Wash prides itself as a water-efficient car wash. Operations manager Joan Wetmore said as much as she pointed out the six green rain barrels hugging the sides of the bays at the Sechelt business. “At any given point you flip a switch and pump from these barrels into a tank,” explained Wetmore. The water is used at the self-serve bays. “We voluntarily did the rainwater harvesting this year because we realized it was such an asset to have this much rain,” she said.
The barrels hold 310 litres of water and the tank holds 3,785 litres and combined is enough to wash about 200 cars.
Splash ’n Shine’s water saving efforts will become a moot point the moment Stage 3 water restrictions take effect, because residential and private car washing are now banned by the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD). Directors voted not to give Splash ’n Shine – which a staff report called one of the largest water users on the regional water system – an exemption at a recent board meeting, leaving the owners feeling singled out.
“I find it misleading to call us one of the largest users,” Wetmore said. “I feel singled out commercially… I don’t see any other business being told to close down when they’re being inefficient with their water.”
Remko Rosenboom, SCRD’s general manager of infrastructure services, wrote in an email that Splash ’n Shine is “among the 15 largest highest water users on the regional system. Of those users five are commercial in nature while the others are institutional and multi-residential users.” He also wrote, “all major commercial water users are metered.”
Splash ’n Shine’s rain harvesting system, installed earlier this year, allows the metered business to use “thousands of gallons of rain water” in its car wash cycles, according to the business’s letter to SCRD. Wetmore said the full-serve portion of the car wash uses about 150 litres per car. She also said the water drains into a sanitary water sewer rather than a storm sewer.
Splash ’n Shine Car Wash received platinum status for innovative and responsible water use in 2009.
To stay open during Stage 3, the business proposed implementing temporary water-saving measures such as stopping the automatic car wash, or removing options from the menu, reducing the hose nozzle size at self-serve bays and eliminating cleaning wash bays with water.
SCRD staff said implementing the changes would save 6,200 daily litres, or 31 per cent of the business’s water consumption.
At the committee meeting where the decision was made, Howe Sound director Ian Winn suggested the business look at drilling a well, but Sechelt mayor and SCRD chair Bruce Milne said given its location on Inlet Avenue, “I’m sure if they did any drilling the first water they’d hit would be a water main.”
Wetmore said she worries the ban on both private and commercial car washing is too austere. “We don’t want to leave the community with no choice. If you can’t wash your car in the driveway, you need to be able to wash it somewhere,” she said.
It’s an issue that has cropped up in municipalities across B.C. At Stage 3, Campbell River bans all car washing except at commercial car washes or car dealerships, for example. And in a February 2017 report by the Canadian Carwash Association, the Greater Vancouver Regional District considered limiting commercial car washing to automatic systems that recirculate water or to manual washing that uses high-pressure wands during Stage 3. The report cited a utilities committee staff report, which found that “commercial car washes use significantly less water per vehicle than manual washing.”
If the new Stage 3 restrictions were applied to the past three years, Splash ’n Shine would have had to shut down for about one month each year. However, according to the staff report, “If Splash ’n Shine were to be the only option for washing a vehicle at Stage 3, it may result in an increase in clients.”
The ban does not apply to a commercial car wash located in Gibsons, where the Stage 3 water restriction bylaw is more relaxed. At Stage 3 they would be contacted and asked to cut back on water use, according to Gibsons bylaw officer Sue Booth.
