Editor:
The summer of 2015, with no rain, long-lasting heat waves and a forest fire saw our community come together. Each week that targets were set for reducing water consumption by the SCRD, citizens complied and achieved the necessary goals to protect our last precious amounts of drinking water. The problem was not waste, it was a lack of water in the watershed reservoir.
Witnessing the millions of dollars being spent on putting water meters in my neighbourhood, the problem is not citizen indifference. It has been a lack of water storage during the increasingly longer, dry season – and expensive, hi-tech meter systems do not solve that.
After being one of the protesters standing on the logging road last winter, I note that once again, AJB is logging in our watershed. The elected SCRD board has not shown tenacious leadership in protecting the forest needed for healthy water. We continue to see more development with more households added to the same Chapman Creek watershed, the cutting of trees that are natural water storage tanks and not one more drop during the rainy season retained in SCRD reservoirs.
The Regional District of Nanaimo actually has a program for households so they can claim $750 to install rain harvesting cistern systems that collect 1,000 litres of water. Now that is a wise use of money because with minimal environmental impact, and a small cost, water storage and emergency water supplies are spread throughout the neighbourhood. This is organic, ecological and the creative thinking needed to develop sustainable, resilient communities.
Denise Lagasse, Halfmoon Bay
