Editor:
The latest round of “consultation” over Tetrahedron Park and increasing our water supply is, once again, going nowhere. We’ve already started rationing water and we’ll see the restrictions ratcheted up as the season progresses. We’re likely to arrive at the peak of gardening season just in time for watering to be severely restricted or prohibited altogether. Yet, we live in a rain forest with 45 inches of rain a year.
This absurdity doesn’t go unnoticed – last summer we were a laughing stock in the national press over this.
We don’t have a water problem – there’s plenty of water for all to enjoy without any environmental impact. We use a miniscule fraction of the runoff to the sea. However, we have a severe water storage and distribution problem of our own making. We’ve known about this slow-motion train wreck for more than two decades and we’ve also known the solutions. We need to improve access to existing water storage, create additional reserves, find additional sources (wells!), fix our long-neglected and leaky water distribution system and install water meters.
What we lack are the politicians with the courage and competence to do something about it. Have no doubt – this is a failure of local government, with blame shared between the SCRD and Sechelt council.
We elect and pay them to make decisions that allow our community to function and grow. They have failed badly. They cater to special interests, indulge in process and bureaucracy, brush off urgency and shuffle the hard tasks down the road.
This failure of local government is unacceptable. We need to elect people who will get things done, not form more committees, carry out more studies and wring their hands as they accomplish nothing. There is an election coming up – it’s time for a change.
Graham Moore, Sechelt
