An overflow crowd at the District of Sechelt’s Aug. 25 water conservation meeting was more concerned about water supply than water conservation, causing the meeting to split into two parts, starting first with an update on the Coast’s water supply and what’s being done to access more.
Bryan Shoji, general manager of infrastructure services for the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD), began the meeting by saying no one was happy about the current situation that has residents on Stage 4 watering restrictions.
“But the reality is we are in a record-breaking drought and we’re going to have to get through this together as a community,” Shoji said.
“We had a very, very low snowpack, leading into a very dry spring, the driest May on record, and the heat and the dryness has continued into summer. Environment Canada has forecasted that this drought is going to continue into the fall, although we are having spatterings of rain and I know there is a front coming this weekend. However, they have just been showers or very short duration storms, which haven’t made an impact on our supply.”
Shoji noted the SCRD usually doesn’t have to access dammed water at Chapman Lake until the middle of July to supplement water flows in Chapman Creek. The water is then recaptured about 14 km downstream by the SCRD’s treatment plant.
Each year the date to open the dam has been pushed back and this year the dam was opened on May 29.
“That gives you an idea of how dry it is. That’s a month and a half to two months early,” Shoji said.
He said the SCRD did foresee the problem and started working on a backup siphon system to access more water from Chapman Lake in May. That option has now almost received all of the required approvals.
“We are still working with BC Parks to get their sign-off on our parks use permit – however, we’re expecting that shortly,” Shoji said, noting the system should be set up by next week.
The siphon system will see large hoses run over the dam and down five metres into Chapman Lake. Currently the SCRD only has access to three metres of the 32-metre-deep lake and the siphon system will make a total of eight metres accessible, Shoji said.
While the siphon system will provide access to more water in Chapman Lake, Shoji said residents will be required to stay on Stage 4 restrictions to make the supply last until “at least November.”
He said the SCRD’s comprehensive regional water plan does have other options to access more water for residents, such as building an engineered lake, digging the channel to Chapman Lake deeper or putting a floating pump station on the lake, but those options would have to be put in motion by the SCRD board.
Shoji added that water meters will help the SCRD find and fix leaks and be able to better manage what water is already available, which will help stretch what supply the SCRD has.
Many in attendance at the meeting said they were against water meters, with some saying that meters “punish the poor” while those with lots of money could simply buy more water if needed.
Speakers also said the money spent on meters would be better spent on accessing more water for residents.
“We can probably, as a community, debate this question for years but we have to deal with demand as well,” Shoji said.
“You can’t just let overconsumption continue to happen. The cheapest water to find is the water that we already have.”
Some residents asked why building was able to continue if water supply is an issue. Shoji answered that an inflated population growth figure was used in the comprehensive regional water plan, so any efforts by the SCRD to secure more water would take that growth into consideration.
Sechelt Mayor Bruce Milne wrapped up the water supply portion of the meeting by thanking Shoji for coming and saying the SCRD would have to host a similar meeting to get more information out to the public in the future.
He also invited residents to attend the SCRD’s Sept. 3 infrastructure services meeting at the SCRD board office.
“We will be discussing these issues and the summer problem in that meeting at a board level,” Milne said.
