Editor:
The following is a letter sent to the SCRD and shared with Coast Reporter.
Here is this year’s water payment of $526.92, up again this year, plus in our taxes to District of Sechelt we pay an additional water charge: “parcel tax – SCRD water” – this year up to $305.33. That’s a total of $832.25 for water that we, the residents – the taxpayers – in Sechelt, aren’t really allowed to use when the annual summer drought hits. Our lawns turn brown, our lovingly tended gardens shrivel and when we hit Stage 3 and 4 we aren’t even allowed to fill up a garden fountain or birdbath.
But the tourists who stay at Air B&Bs and the many short term vacation rentals, use all the water they want, and are often very wasteful in their use, many of them coming from places where there are no water restrictions.
Sure, there’s the newly discovered Church Road Well Field, but it has to serve the entire Sunshine Coast and it’s a no-brainer that if big subdivisions are continually being approved there will never be enough water to keep up with the ever-growing population.
If water conservation is your goal, one of the best ways would be to stop allowing more big developments that will suck up vast amounts of water. And why not build a few really big reservoirs to catch all the rainwater that pours down much of the year and just flows back out to sea?
Cecilia Ohm-Eriksen
Sechelt
