Editor:
The Sunshine Coast doesn’t have a water shortage. Rather, it has far more water than it needs. The problem is that most of it is salty.
This fact hit home three years ago when my husband and I visited Los Cabos, Mexico. One day we hopped on a bus and got off at a random stop. We walked down the hill to the beach. We were awed with what we saw.
Instead of brown dirt, occasional cacti and dead and dying trees that blanket most of Baja California, we saw green grass and colourful, healthy vegetation. Frangipani trees burst with flowers and colourful coleus plants had leaves as large as umbrellas.
Back at our hotel I inquired about the lushness of the neighborhood. Baja has experienced a severe water shortage for many, many years, the hotel manager said. The government now insists that new developments provide their own water. Many developers have installed desalination systems.
Reflecting on that, I was cheered to learn from the lead story in the Coast Reporter last week that SCRD staff are investigating desalination systems. Undoubtedly they will find the technology is expensive. There are also environmental issues with disposing of brine. But newer osmosis methods are much more benign to the environment than older technology. As for the costs, if Mexican developers can afford it and still sell their condos, I’d expect that Canadian developers could afford it too.
Let’s do what the Mexicans do and let the developers pay. Insisting that they install their own desalination plants would quell the call for a moratorium on development. It would also make the Sunshine Coast a leader in tackling the effects of climate change.
We don’t need water. We need to make developers make it drinkable.
Elizabeth Rains, Gibsons
