After living a few days with the Stage 4 ban on all outdoor watering, public anger has boiled over at the Sunshine Coast Regional District for its mismanagement of the water system.
Yes, mismanagement. Even the SCRD recognizes it. Speaking to reporter Christine Wood this week, infrastructure services general manager Bryan Shoji rightly put the responsibility for the current crisis on the previous SCRD board. Last September, directors caved in to a delegation of about 40 environmentalists who opposed all four measures proposed by a consultant to draw down Chapman Lake further to supply high water demand periods. Instead of acting on any of the options presented, the board deferred the matter until next year.
Now, almost one year after that bad gamble and one week into Stage 4, Shoji is scrambling to put one of those drawdown options into place.
Sunshine Coast residents have been amazingly conscientious in reducing their water use, which declined by 40 per cent before Stage 4 was implemented on Aug. 13. But with the added burden of Stage 4, many residents have also noticed that we don’t live in the Nevada desert or on the banks of the Ganges River. Clean, fresh water is plentiful in those hills – it’s a question of management.
For the SCRD, management has meant the public doing without water. The big vision for this decade starts and stops with putting everyone on a water meter.
As our readers so generously point out this week, the SCRD’s approach is unsustainable and unacceptable. Our communities cannot grow without more water. They cannot thrive without more water. The SCRD’s own agricultural plan is a joke without more water.
A new management plan is desperately needed, with a focus on tapping into the voluminous supply of fresh water at the regional district’s disposal, whether inside or outside the Chapman system.
The public is awake. They haven’t showered enough lately, their once-sparkling homes are acquiring dull, grimy finishes and their gardens are dying. In a land filled with water, the situation is absurd.
The SCRD, we suspect, is about to get its marching orders. It’s about time.
