Editor:
BC Hydro has a power facility at the head of Salmon Inlet on the Clowhom River. Their dam has an operating height of 11 metres and creates the 800-hectare reservoir of Clowhom Lake. Each metre of depth of this reservoir is more water than the Sunshine Coast uses in an entire year. BC Hydro operates this facility like a run of the river project – the turbines turn when there is sufficient flow in the watershed. They shut down during low flow periods. Power generation consumes so much water that it would drain the reservoir within a week.
Tapping into this reservoir would have no impact on power generation and would be all the water the Sunshine Coast needs until the end of time. The 30-kilometre pipeline required to reach this water is not a major engineering feat. The continuous barge access as you lay this line along the shore would be a project made in heaven to contractors who work in the business. The Romans of 2,000 years ago would have had this water here long ago. The SCRD has never given this any serious consideration and have lost sight of their primary reason for existence. With inevitable and accelerating water shortages, the only plans from those in charge is to continue to deny returning salmon their water rights in Chapman Creek, spend $10 million to suck the last few frogs from the bottom of Chapman Lake, and punish residents with water-meters, increasing rates, water restrictions and fines. These folks prefer to focus on regulating behaviour rather than solving problems. At its core this inertia lies with a perverse conservation ethos which remains unstated and deep-seated within this governing body.
R. Giza, Davis Bay
