Regulating during times of scarcity – a multi-stage approach
Managing water when there’s an adequate amount is already challenging. Managing water when there isn’t enough to go around – during drought and times of scarcity – is far more complex. When water shortages occur tough decisions have to be made.
Under the current Water Act, water licences are granted according to the principle of First-in-Time First-in-Right or FITFIR. The right to water from a particular stream is based on the priority date of the licence. This means that when water is scarce, “senior” licensees (i.e., those holding licences with earlier priority dates) take precedence over “junior” licensees.
In many areas this arrangement has worked well over the years. In others, however, it has lead to conflict, and not enough emphasis on conservation.
Support for FITFIR and Priority of Use in our first round of engagement
In our first round of engagement, support was expressed for both a Priority of Use and FITFIR approach.
However, what was very clear was that British Columbians support a “hierarchy of uses.” Water use for food production, drinking water, environmental flows as well as non-consumptive activities were high priorities. You can read more about what British Columbians said about regulation during times of scarcity in our Report on Engagement.
Support for hierarchy of uses from our first round of engagement
As Ted White explains in this video, with the proposed Water Sustainability Act we’re looking to create a staged approach which emphasizes conservation and efficiency before moving to regulatory approaches.
When regulatory approaches are required, we’re proposing an approach that stages the use of planning tools, FITFIR and priority of use.
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This is just like every other so called government consultation a useless exercise in obscuring the real issues. In this case you are trying to establish a privately run business to sell B C water and you are trying to fool people into thinking this is about conservation. The reality is that water is already halfway privatized since the Free Trade Agreements of the 1980s gave up Canadas ability to control its own resources to big business and the American government which puts US needs, at the least, on an equal footing with Canadian. These proposals clearly comodify something that is a common not a private good. On that basis I reject all of these proposals because they all start from the assumption that water is a private good that consumers need to bid on in the so called market place.
I too do NOT agree with the commoditization of water in BC as in the proposed new BC Water Act. Please rework this legislation. Drinking water for British Columbians needs to have priority over other uses, and the use of water for industrial and commercial purposes must always be a privilege that can be withdrawn without the need to pay compensation.
Thanks!
I don’t agree with the proposed B.C. Water Act legislation/changes. Our water belongs to individual Canadians and individual Canadians alone – under no circumstances should any water rights be given to corporations. Additionally, I don’t believe that we should export our most valuable resource.
The act definitely needs modernizing, but I don’t believe that this is the right way of going about it.
First in Time, First in Right water allocation needs to be preserved in order to ensure that water presently used for agriculture remains for agriculture.
Agriculture and food production needs to be acknowledged as the highest priority above all other water uses. Without a secure water supply for agriculture our food security is at risk. Water wells that take water for uses other than agriculture should not be allowed to remove or reduce the amount of water from the wells, streams ,etc utilized by agriculture.
I do NOT agree with this newly proposed B.C. Water Act legislation! Our water belongs to Canadians and this legislation will make us have to export it to the USA! Let’s keep our resources in Canada for CANADIANS!!
I do NOT agree with the proposed new legislation of the B.C. Water Act. Once our bulk water resource is commoditized it becomes tradeable under the NAFTA regulations and B.C. would be irreversibly obliged to sell its fresh water resources to the United States. This was a big issue at the time of the original NAFTA agreement negotiations. I attended a Vancouver Board of Trade session dealing with the NAFTA proposals and trade negotiators speaking at the VBT forum made very very clear that, so long as water was sold in bottled form, it was not affected by NAFTA. Once it became a bulk sale item it became eligible under NAFTA for compulsory export at the same rates as sold to Canadians. Now the Government of BC is heading directly down this path. There is no scarcity of water in this province of B.C., there is a shortage of good water management. For example: taking the Rice Lake watershed containment area out of the GVWD years ago for residential development and creating the token Seymour Demonstration Forest compromised the fresh water storage resources of the lower mainland from which the GVWD has yet to fully recover.
No one wants to have to cut off water in times of scarcity but when it’s necessary,a law may well be needed.
http://blog.wwf.ca/blog/2011/03/04/fish-out-of-water-time-for-stronger-rules-to-protect-environmental-flows/
Emphasizing conservation and efficiency is great,but regulation is a crucial part of the toolkit,too. Reforming the Water Act is all about changing the law and regulations, so let’s talk about the merits of different regulatory approaches. Which ones provide certainty, and balance environmental needs, the long neglected side of water law in BC, with our other water law goals?
While I agree the BC Water Act needs modernizing, I cannot tolerate even the thought of a revision giving more rights to large corporations.
Your proposed model has failed elsewhere, what makes you beleive you can do better? Oh yeah, you’re just another large corporation yourselves.
Please find a real solution before attempting to fix things. If you need help there are a number of organizations that know more than you do. Try the David Suzuki Foudation for one. He should be able to be reached personally if you try, he’s been telling you all along.
Thanks,
JP, Surrey, BC