A capacity crowd came to the District of Sechelt (DOS) Aug. 25 to help guide the development of Sechelt’s new water conservation plan.
The e-town hall meeting on water conservation was planned months before a massive drought hit the Sunshine Coast and residents were put on Stage 4 water restrictions – but the timeliness of the issue didn’t hurt the turnout.
In addition to the dozens in attendance were 31 YouTube watchers of the live meeting and an additional 120 commenters online.
Those in attendance noted that handouts on how to conserve water and more information about how to properly use grey water could go a long way to helping conservation efforts in Sechelt.
Troy Vassos of Goulder and Associates, part of a DOS panel of experts, was on hand to expound on grey water issues.
“There’s a lot of misconception that grey water’s bad for your plants and bad for your garden,” Vassos said.
“When looking at the actual literature that studied grey water … it doesn’t harm the plants, it doesn’t harm the soil.”
He said bath water, for example, could be used to water plants and vegetables without issue.
He also said grey water systems could be put in homes to re-use bath water to help flush toilets.
He noted that in the average home about 60 per cent of water use comes from bathing and toilet flushing, so reusing that water can significantly reduce the amount of potable
water needed.
While some at the meeting said they were already using grey water to nourish their lawns and gardens, Sechelt Mayor Bruce Milne noted Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) might not have the same view as Vassos.
“Vancouver Coastal Health has a more nuanced view on grey water,” Milne said. “As much as it makes sense that your child just bathed in water and you can put it on your front lawn, Paul Martiquet (medical health officer with VCH) would maybe disagree with that and that’s part of the difficulty with getting the right information out to people and how careful we need to be.”
The DOS will compile the comments and questions from the meeting and bring a report to council before another e-town hall meting will be scheduled in September to help further inform the District’s water conservation plan.
