Editor:
Denial is not just a river in Egypt, but a creek in Davis Bay that no longer provides enough water for the Sunshine Coast’s current residents (let alone thousands more planning to build here).
As climate change descends on Canada at “double the magnitude of global warming” elsewhere in the world, the month of March saw only 25 per cent of our once-upon-a-time average rainfall (Environment Canada). Droughts are part of the new reality that we must face. It is no longer “business as usual” so we can no longer plan as before.
Our water crisis demands that the SCRD must conflate long-term planning with short-term planning NOW to provide adequate, long-lasting solutions. Previous SCRD directors have commissioned various studies, opted for cheaper half-measures, and kicked the can down the road. Mindful conservation is indeed important but it will not address the new reality of extreme water shortage here. Nor will punitive fines that exact “compliance” to stop watering our vegetable gardens.
Because of the SCRD’s previous track record of not addressing adequate water supply and storage, how can we support ANY future development here until the water storage problem is solved? And yet new subdivisions and a hotel are coming online in Sechelt, demonstrating shocking “denial” of what should be the number one “strategic priority.”
Will the newly elected SCRD directors, including Mayor Siegers of Sechelt, realize that we can no longer plan for past realities? Will the SCRD board go into crisis management and turn up the heat in applying for the federal money promised to municipalities for water and infrastructure? Whether that is for a new reservoir (which will not drain the aquifer as ground wells could do) and/or accessing Clowhom Lake as the primary water source?
Teri McArter and Fraser McArter, Sechelt
