Improving Security, Water Use Efficiency and Conservation
In our first round of engagement, one message we heard time and again is that much more could be done to encourage more efficient use of British Columbia’s water. British Columbians use more water, on average than other Canadians and than most developed countries. There’s a lot of room for us all to improve. Not only does it make economic sense to be more efficient with our water, the more efficiently we use our water, the more we are able to ensure proper instream flows are met and we’re protecting stream health and aquatic environments.
As Ted White explains in the video below, the proposed Water Sustainability Act will help British Columbians to increase efficiency, water security and conservation with a series of powerful tools. These tools include economic instruments, best management practices, reinforcement of beneficial use requirements and the introduction of Agricultural Water Reserves.
Many of you have expressed strong concerns about tradeable permits – e.g., water markets as an economic instrument. Please be assured that we are reviewing your concerns very closely.
We‘d also like to hear what you think about the other economic tools we’ve proposed, like fee-based measures, rebates, and liability and assurance regimes.
| Other Economic Instruments for consideration |
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We’ve heard support for tying water use efficiency directly to the definition of beneficial use. Beneficial use means that the water use is to be without waste and is reasonably efficient. This is a requirement under the current Water Act and a condition of existing water licences. Placing even greater emphasis on efficient use in the proposed Water Sustainability Act would require water users to demonstrate how they’re efficiently using water as part of their licence.
We have heard concerns that water savings resulting from more efficient practices will lead to reduced water allocations. In part, the concept of Agriculture Water Reserves has been developed to address this concern.
While we can encourage water use efficiencies, without water users making better choices, we won’t be able to make real changes towards a more sustainable future.
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Rebates for infrastructure improvements are good; better the carrot than the stick.
I am wary of Liability and Assurance regimes with regard to corporate water use. Look at the re-injection of used, toxic hydraulic fracturing water into deep wells: how are you going to prove they polluted the groundwater used by a house or town 50 kilometers away? The idea is good but big corporations, like Encana or Talisman will ALWAYS find a way to avoid or minimize their responsibility for environmental damage. The current government has provided me with no evidence that it is able to police environmental problems or enforce environmental standards when it has cut budgets in the forestry and environment ministries and changed the rules for the Environmental Appeal Board such that it CANNOT turn down a project,only mitigate potential damage. Just look at the 10 year problem of the one ranch in the Nicola Valley!
Liability and Assurance regimes sounds good but if there is no money or will, it will be window dressing and will not help preserve water for the environment and people of British Columbia.
Agriculture and food production require long term access to an adequate supply of fresh, clean water. Water saved through conservation methods in agriculture need to be reserved for future expansions in the agriculture sector. Any transfer or trading of agriculture water rights must reemain in the agriculture sector, and not allocated to other user groups. The historical allocation for agriculture needs to be maintained for agriculture and grandfathered into any new system.
The physical access to lakes, streams etc. as well as the volume required for livestock needs to be transferable between in-stream and off-stream usage. It is not necessary to fence cattle away from all streams. In our situation the installation of solar powered off-stream watering facilities for cattle has resulting in cattle drinking from the the off-stream sites more than 90% of the time without additional fencing.
Water licenses should be tied to Crown range tenures to ensure water security on the range.
The First In Time, First In Right system for water allocation needs to be preserved in order to ensure that water presently in agriculture remains in agriculture. Water license users who use less than their allocation should be rewardsed for their conservation efforts, rather than being penalised.
I believe that the water in British Columbia belongs to the people of British Columbia and private corporations should NOT have the right to use our water for profit. Our water is a necessity that we all need to survive. Nobody should own our water. It should be there for all British Columbians and future generations.
Iam very concerned about the possible effects that a new Water Act could have on my farming operation. Our farm a has always experienced water shortage problems. Any attempt to reduce the availablity of water for our farming operation will be detrimental to the viability of the farm.
Starting in the early 80′s our farm has been greatly affected by residential development through the mismanagement of runoff water. Well water is used for livestock and crop production on our farm. However, with the development, water yields in our main irrigation well decreased. The attitude of municipalities , in regards to runoff water is to stick it in a pipe and get rid of it. Therefore, you have lost an possible opportunity to help recharge the aquifer. The municipalities, also, use farms as retention ponds when they can’t handle excess runoff water during times of heavy rain. Excess runoff water could be held back back in retention ponds to be used for irrigation purposes of help recharge the aquifer. Runoff water needs to be managed so that there is no more runoff than there was pre development. This could,also, benefit fish streams by allowing water to run later in the summer when small streams and creeks tend to dry up. Any attempt to come up with a plan of water retention on our farm to be used when needed, was met with disinterest.
Agriculture is a great benefit to the B.C. economy but, if restrictions are placed on water use for Agriculture, then our local food supply will be affected and therefore, we will have no food security. At a time when local food production is being promoted to help reduce our carbon footprint especially with the rising oil prices , there has never been a more important time to ensure that Agriculture has an ample supply of clean water.
I am impressed with the many well articulated individual and oranization presentations that have emphasized concerns over privatizing public water, the misuse and over allocation of water, legally binding watershed plans and that environmental flows must take priority,conservation and efficencies and the the list goes on. And the consistant and constant message is the necessity to incorporate strong legislative regulation language into the final document rather guidlines for controlling water wastage and over consumption.
With the world going through extraordinary climate change events, over population issues, governance tensions, natural calamities and even civil wars on a scale never seen before there is a need for stable countries and provinces to conduct their affairs and manage their resources in a calm and rational way. There needs to be leadership and stewardship that has never been seen before because the world is approaching a state of serious division, acute shortages of many resources and in particular water and conflict of every description is emerging. We need to show leadership in the management of water in our province that second to none.
Privatization of water into whatever context is put forward in the discussion document is not acceptable. I and every person I talk with is oppossed to the privatization of our water in any shape or form, whether it is surface, ground or spring water.
Private corporations big or small will always have a vested interest. That interest hinges upon corporate/company survival,the human drive too succeed,to gain power and wealth that is often motivated by greed, most often out of necessity and by the competive human nature to accomplish something special and so on. I went through it and many other have. It does not matter how ethical and moral ones intentions may be money most often often trumps everything else whatever it may be. That is why governments must control the allocation and the use of water which together with the air we breathe are the two most imortant of all natural resources. Human and all of the ecosystems of the world and the life within them depends upon careful and discreet management. Governance must not be swayed by forces focused on individual or private gain at the expense of the greater good.
Management of water in BC after more than 100 years of intensive indudtrial,agriculture, domestic and energy use is divided into almost cast in stone pieces of the pie. Some would say that is unalterable. If that were the case we would not be going through this exercise of trying to find a better and more sustainable way of managing water in our province. We have to recognize that many large players and users of water benifit all British Columbians in one way or another, at the the same time much ecological harm has and is taking place. What to do? Obviously wholesale changes are not in the cards. What is required is re-examination of existing water licenses to determine what has gone wrong and determine how to make adjustments and changes that will save species of fish, wildlife and ecosytems that are on the brink. And in the future all knew water licenses applications must go through a more thorough and intensive examination before a license is granted.
If a decision were made in BC to discuss the possibility of exporting water there must be a full public dialogue and consultation process to decide if that possibility should even be explored let alone considering any specific applications. Once our country and province goes down that road, it becomes sliperier and more tenuous as precedents are set and NFTA rules are engaged.
I am very concerned over industry and those in the business of generating electric power being given special water licenses that are very close to being quasi forms of privatization e.g. the original Alcan agreement,previous BC Electric(BC Hydro), Cominco-Trail Smelter and numerous other industries who have far too much control over our water. The most recent phenomenom is the explosion of run of the river hydro projects which are having a huge impact upon watersheds across this province. Not one of these projects should have been given or should be given control over a river or a stream. There must be much greater scrutiny and allowance for public assessment through a more rigorous and open process.
The existing 44000+ water licenses need to come under greater scrutiny and control. All grandfathering of water licenses must be reviewed and determined if the public good and environmental values are being overly impacted. There must be metering and evaluation to decide if current license holders are exceeding their maximum water allocations. If that maximum allocation is having a severe impact upon ecosystems, fish, other water license holders or the public good changes must take place. Reduced water allocations for existing license must be considered and penalties imposed when those who ignore orders to cut back refuse to do so.
It is common knowledge that there are severe impacts upon ecosytems and fish in the Southern Interior (e.g. Nicola Drainage, Coldwater River, Deadman Creek,the Summerland Area and the whole Okanogan River Basin). The situation is so severe with the Nicola and Coldwater Rivers water license extractions that we are losing what arguably is British Columbias most iconic steelhead, those magnificent specimens that migrate back to the Thompson River. This population of steelhead is tipping in the direction of extinction. It is a threatened and at some time in the near future the “Speciea at Risk Act” needs to be considered as way of saving them. Priority use is no longer acceptable in a situation such as this. All licenses that have been issued that impact upon these steelhead need to be reviewed to determine what impacts are taking place. Following that evaluation caps on usuage need to be incorporated into the amended licenses.
My family and I once held a water license for a small spring on our property that provided our domestic water supply. We did not have to meter or cary out any specific determination over how much water we were using. All we were required to do for that water use was to pay our annual fee and check on the quality of the water from time to time. A small creek called Noble Five flows through our former property which is a nursury and spawning stream for coho salmon , cutthroat trout and dolly varden char. An upstream water license holder on more than one occasion and over separate years, during dought periods, used his legally allocated, maximum licensed amount of water for irrigation purposes and dried up all of the flowing water into the creek downstream of his property. I salvaged many juvanile fish from the pools that had some goundwater seepage and moved them downstream where there remained small amounts of flowing water. The fact that the water license allowed for such a large amount of water to be used during drought periods is unacceptable (and it still happens). What also is unacceptable is that the licensed flow usuage and the creek water flows were not monitored during those drought periods.
In closing it is important to point out some examples of larger rivers where for more than half a century there were no minumum water flows allocated to maintain a satisfactory water volume for the survival of the original populations of fish. the Coquitlam and the South Allouette Rivers were dammed for domestic and hydro electric purposes and no minimum water flows were allocated for fish or aquatic life in those rivers. That is until recent times, when after years of pressure from many organizations and individuals there are now minimum water flows. The result of the lack of water is that the original numbers of fish in the two rivers are a fraction of what they once were and the variability of species has been reduced with the loss of sockeye salmon in the Coquitlam River. A major recent effort is being made to restore these sockeye through the kokanee(land locked sockeye)gene pool in Coquitlam Lake.
These two rivers for those many years during low flow periods, had no water flowing from the reservoirs over the dams. Survival of fish in the two systems depended upon tributary stream flows downstream of the dams. Why was this so? And how many other rivers and streams across BC were and continue to be impacted by these inadiquate and imbalanced water flow allocations.
I do NOT agree with the ‘Modernization of BC Water Act”. The people of BC must maintain public water rights to their water sources. Do NOT privatize our water supply by allowing it to become an economic instrument!!!
“Water is a common resource. Water is not a property.”
Dear Sirs;
I feel that we should look after our water supply. I stress, our. This water does not belong to a private company, and, in no circumstance should it ever belong to a private company. This water is a natural resource of the Province of British Columbia. In no way should any other level of government, or, any other government at all, have any say it how it is developed. If there is any development, then any cost should be borne by the developers, in total, with no outside help, and the majority of the profits should be returned to the people of British Columbia.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this policy proposal. The time has come for the government to step up to the challenge and more actively manage and protect our water and the natural environment.
My first suggestion is to drop the word “sustainability” from the title of the act. It is unnecessary and the meaning is not clear. It should go without saying that the government’s objective in managing water is to conserve or “sustain” the resource. Are we going to change all natural resource legislation to include the word “sustainability” or is it only water that has this management objective? There is no need to change the name of the Water Act!
Protect stream health and Aquatic environments
You have my support for this policy direction but I don’t feel it goes far enough. Protecting stream health should include protecting the natural values of free flow and periodic flooding wherever possible. I realize that a lot of us live on flood plains but we should make sure that there is no new development that requires restriction of seasonal floods. In addition there should be more emphasis on protecting water quality and making licensees more responsible for avoiding degradation of water quality. Does the government currently have a comprehensive system for monitoring the quality of ground and surface water in the province?
My main concern here is the reliance on guidelines. I understand the need to have some discretion but from my experience the use of guidelines will only protect stream health and aquatic environments in situations where there is no significant pressure or influence on the decision maker. Being constrained by law protects government managers and allows them to do what is right for the natural environment and for the future.
Enforceable standards are necessary to protect water and the feedback on the discussion paper showed a preference for standards so why are guidelines proposed?
Regulate ground water use
This is a necessary initiative. What is the plan for monitoring and protecting the quality of groundwater?
Regulate during scarcity
I can not support regulation by priority date. I understand that it will be difficult to make the change but this idea is no longer valid. Regulation by importance of use is a more defensible approach but this will require some in depth discussion with the public to reach a common understanding and acceptance of the ranking. Environmental protection and drinking water are obvious priorities but food production requires some definition. If “food production” includes stock watering then there are situations were I don’t agree that this is a priority. I realize that cows need water but there are often a number of options available. Use of local surface water is the cheapest but that doesn’t necessarily make it a high priority use.
Uses with low environmental impact should be given a higher priority.
Within categories of use, the more efficient operations should be given a higher priority. In times of scarcity we can not afford to use water inefficiently.
Economic Instruments
There is a fundamental principle that relates to this section:
No one other than the government on behalf of the public should benefit from the granting or transfer of rights to use a public resource.
I can understand rights to use water for commercial or industrial purposes being for sale by the government to the highest bidder. The public should be compensated whenever anyone uses water to make a profit but what is the justification for allowing individuals or companies to sell water that doesn’t belong to them?
I understand the concept of using pricing to encourage efficient use but what safeguards will be in place to ensure that individuals with limited financial resources will still have access to water during times of scarcity?
Enabling a range of governance approaches
The principle mentioned above has to be kept in mind when delegating responsibility. The responsibility for environmental protection should remain with the provincial government. If this is delegated it becomes difficult to hold anyone accountable. Enforcement of standards contained in legislation is essential to ensure protection of the environment and this function can not be delegated.
In addition the province should retain responsibility for the fair allocation of this limited and valuable public resource.
One last comment on the policy proposal:
This is the first time I have come across the word “incent” . I assume that the author is taking liberties with the English language and creating a verb form of incentive??
Thanks for listening
Keith Monroe
The Steelhead Society of BC (SSBC) welcomes the opportunity to comment on the proposed Water Sustainability Act (WSA) and would like to express concern regarding the following areas of the proposed Act:
• The proposed WSA does not resolve the inequities of the First In Time First In Right allocation system. Government must develop a progressive allocation system that recognizes rivers, lakes, wetlands and groundwater as legitimate priority users and moves beyond the prior allocation system.
• Fish require “rights” to water.
• The use of “guidelines” regarding instream flow needs for existing licenses rather than enforceable standards. Strong regulations for stream flows are our best insurance against further degradation and new water law must have legislated flows to meet human and environmental needs. Many watersheds are currently over-allocated and existing water law ignored to the detriment of environmental flows and downstream users. The proposed Act fails to protect environmental flows from the 44,000 existing water licenses that clearly require effective monitoring to promote more efficient use of water. Regulatory agencies must undertake a license-compliance and beneficial-use audit of existing water licenses and water use in all areas of critical water shortage.
• The SSBC is opposed to the partial privatization of BC’s water through the use of tradable permits and/or water markets. Water in all its forms is owned as a public resource. Private rights to use water are limited, temporary, and must therefore be subject to conditions that protect the public interest. The WSA must recognize the crucial “public interest” role for government in managing the resource and affirm that licenses are only temporary rights to use the resource and not permanent or property rights.
• Water metering of all large groundwater and surface water users must be considered as a means of conserving and sharing of a scarce resource.
There is much within the proposed WSA that is encouraging, such as groundwater regulation and Provincial Water Objectives. The SSBC maintains, however, that further public consultation is required prior to contentious issues like water markets becoming law.
Greg Gordon
(for) Brian Braidwood
President
This proposal has the intention of marketing British Columbia’s Water to the rest of the world. At first one may think “We have so much, so why not share?”. In the short term we must consider new developments and housing being constructed as unseen drains on our resource. The second is environmental degradation due to new power schemes such as “Run of the River” which will be redistributing massive amounts of river run off and glacial melt. If one were to try and control our water it will tend toward being wasted and misused, a human fact.
Keep British Columbia’s Water off NAFTAs list of purchasable resources. BC’s water is not for sale.
As a Canadian and B.C. resident, I am opposed to the proposed “modernization’ of B.C.’s Water Act. The B.C. Government’s proposed New Water Act is a betrayal of the common good that government is supposed to hold in trust and preserve. Water is a public resource belonging to the people of B.C.. Our water must never be passed over as a tradable economic right to be in the future owned by, and potentially sold by, hydro-electricity providers and mining corporations. The short-term thinking that would make such a proposal flies in the face of everything B.C. stands for, and is being done before the global value of fresh water becomes evident to either the B.C. population at large or to the M.L.A’s who would contemplate this betrayal of trust.
The privatization of water that is the crux of the proposed Act will be irreversible once enacted.
The proposed Act is so seriously flawed, it must be rejected by all British Columbians.
Canada is one of the highest water users per capita in the world. Managing Canada’s water resources, which represents about seven per cent of the worlds renewable freshwater, is everyone’s responsibility.
One of the top priorities going forward in the new Water Sustainability Act should be; a BC Water Act that will set standards for all BC waters, whether surface, ground or diffuse, in all areas of the province, rural and urban. BC’s water laws need to protect trans-border rivers, lakes and aquifers (See the Statement of Expectations on the reform of the BC Water Act, endorsed by 29 environmental non-governmental organizations).
Policy Direction – Protect Stream Health and Aquatic Environments
The proposed Water Sustainability Act requires that instream flows be considered when water is allocated. As West Coast Environmental Law pointed out, should this be instated, it would provide extremely weak legal protection. Going forward the Water Sustainability Act needs to directly address the importance of instream flow and groundwater protection by setting clear standards rather than guidelines. Furthermore, these standards need to apply not only to new water licences but also to the existing 44,000 current water licenses in BC. A question to the BC Ministry of Environment is how will the new Act work to improve conditions in those parts of the province where over-allocation has threatened flows? What procedures will be used to amend existing licences in these heavily used watersheds?
Human use and poor management of freshwater resources puts many biological populations that inhabit flow-regulated environments at serious risk. Overuse of diverted water, or the inappropriate diversion of water from a sensitive ecosystem, is a common problem in British Colombia, often harming fish and other components of aquatic ecosystems. Conflicting demands on freshwater resources present a perplexing dilemma for managers of streams and rivers: how much can the natural flow regime be altered while still ensuring population persistence in aquatic and riparian communities?
The solution to this dilemma involves identifying the instream flow needs (i.e. the quantity, timing, and variability of flow required to maintain desired levels of population biomass and biotic diversity). Monitoring and reporting of actual extraction rates should be required for all major licenses. We agree with Living Water Smart (LWS) that measuring and reporting should be a key part of the Policy Proposal on BC’s new Water Sustainability Act; however, water conditions vary considerably around the province. We ask, has the province considered a minimum flow standard to apply to all rivers to save the time and money associated with intensive water use planning processes? Furthermore, are there any plans to phase in over time monitoring and reporting of extraction for all licenses including licenses held by independent power producer projects?
Policy Direction – Regulate Groundwater Use
The failure to regulate groundwater has been one of the biggest gaps in BC water governance. The proposed Water Sustainability Act intends to address this problem stating:
“groundwater extraction and use will be regulated in problem areas and for all large groundwater withdrawals across BC.”
However, the focus on large users and chronic problem areas creates a risk of addressing problems only after they have occurred, rather than preventing problems from occurring (Reference; Comparison: Proposed Water Sustainability Act v. ENGO Statement of Expectations AND Living Water Smart).
Regulation of ground water is more complex than surface water and requires a level of information and scientific understanding largely lacking in BC at the present time. Management of sensitive streams, riparian habitats, and water resources rely on understanding the interactions between groundwater and surface water. Groundwater upwelling directly affects surface water by sustaining stream base flows, providing stable-temperature habitat, and supplying nutrients and inorganic matter.
Dr. Hinch, a fisheries researcher and professor at the University of British Columbia, recently determined that as water temperatures continue to climb (predictions suggest an increase of between 2 and 4 degrees over the next 60 to 80 years), more and more Fraser River salmon are likely to die before they have a chance to spawn (See; Rising temperature in Fraser River affecting Salmon population).
In the face of such predications the importance of groundwater upwelling for providing stable temperature habitats is extremely significant. It is therefore imperative the Water Sustainability Act require groundwater licensing in all areas of the province. The province should revisit its plan to regulate only in ‘priority areas’, as referred to in LWS. If any geographical areas are proposed to be exempted from groundwater licensing requirements, the province must justify the exemption through scientifically derived criteria (See; Groundwater and healthy salmon streams-it’s all connected).
Please bear with me, as this is likely to be a lengthy submission. Below I’ve quoted sections of a report from the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council that demonstrates the BC government’s lack of commitment to environmental flows on the Nicola River, an area of chronic and critical water shortages. As a result of government’s unwillingness to enforce current water law, many fish stocks within the Nicola River, like steelhead, are at critically low levels, bordering on extirpation. Amazingly, for years, government continued to approve new water licenses on this over-subscribed system.
In an era of politically-imposed, ever-shrinking environment ministry budgets, how will the proposed Water Sustainability Act address issues like a lack of political will to enforce water law and the unwillingness to commit resources to accurately monitor situations like that which exists on the Nicola River?
Rosenau ML, Angelo M. 2003. Conflicts between People and Fish for Water: Two British Columbia Salmon and Steelhead Rearing Streams in Need of Flows. Vancouver, BC: Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council.
p.49 “…the primary concern regarding water use and fish in the Nicola River basin is that extraction of water from many of the streams has been viewed as excessive during low flow periods. Too many times, inadequate flows may have occurred for either instream rearing juvenile fish, adult migration or the incubation of embryos and alevins, based on local fisheries management observations. Furthermore, flow issues may have worsened on occasion as a result of non-compliance by water license holders, be it intentional or otherwise, and in the absence of comprehensive compliance monitoring in this watershed. A lack of resources to carry out such compliance assessments is a common theme.”
p.62 “4.5.3 Non-Compliance Monitoring
“One of the more sensitive issues affecting fish and flows in this and other watersheds throughout British Columbia relates to non-compliance of water licensees who extract more water than is stipulated in their license. Hubert et al. (1990) showed that water license diversion rates for agriculture are often not adhered to, and this has probably been the case as well in the Nicola River basin. While the Nicola Basin Strategic Plan recommended that audits or compliance measurements of water extraction take place, for the most part this activity was limited in the watershed. A recent and rare exception to the lack of compliance water monitoring in the Nicola River basin involved the Regional Water Engineer directing a ranch on the Coldwater River to attach a cumulative-flow-recording device on their irrigation pump in 2001. Because the intake structures for many of these agricultural-water intakes are relatively crude, and do not normally have technologically-accurate flow-measuring devices attached to them, it is difficult to know if a license holder is in compliance with the amount of water permitted for withdrawal from the stream. Furthermore, compliance monitoring by the provincial government agency responsible for ensuring observance of the Water Act in the Nicola River basin has been almost non-existent. It should be noted that over-extraction of water impacts not only on instream fisheries resources but on water-license holders in the downstream areas.
“Over the years a number of individuals in the Coldwater Valley had complained that a particular license holder had been diverting more water than was allowed by the water licenses. When Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks water management staff began to investigate the complaint in 1991, it became clear that the water extraction taking place was substantially more than the diversion volume allowed by the water licenses. However, the practice was allowed to continue.
“Then in 1994 a further investigation again determined that the diversion of water at this ranch was significantly out of compliance as per the conditions set by the license; the non-compliance estimate was about double that of the permitted volume. Subsequently, in 1995 there was a public request that enforcement personnel investigate the same license holders, and in 1998 a Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks memo described the situation as a gross over-use of water. The matter still continued to remain unresolved.
“Finally, in 2001 the Province’s Water Engineer met with the license holder and sent a letter stipulating that a cumulative-flow-measuring device be attached to the facility and that the licensee submit records of water use to the Water Management Branch. The data provided by the measuring device showed that by August 1, 2001 almost 160 acre-feet had already been pumped and by August 29 over 250 acre-feet had been used; the license only allowed 115 acre-feet per annum. A subsequent flow measurement at the point of diversion estimated that almost 500 acre-feet would have been extracted per year when extrapolated over the season.
“The license holder appealed the requirement for measuring extraction of water by the Water Engineer to the Environmental Appeal Board, and took the position that local groundwater contributions to the diversion flows were substantially greater than that determined by the agency. The license holder felt that the amount of river water being used was within the limits of the license; note that groundwater extractions do not require licensing in British Columbia. The counter argument by water management staff was that the groundwater contribution was small. The Environmental Appeal Board upheld the Water Engineer’s position based on the evidence provided in the hearing.
“This case points to the difficulty in monitoring and enforcing compliance with licensed diversions in the Nicola River basin. Monitoring is expensive, time consuming, technically difficult, and fraught with inconsistencies. What is probably more remarkable is the fact that the water management agency took so long to enforce the Water Act despite evidence that the license holder was significantly diverting more than allowed by license for more than ten years.
“As a result of this and other experiences, it is the view of various fisheries professionals in the Thompson-Nicola region that over-extraction of water in the Nicola River basin is probably common and significant in terms of occurrences and volumes, and that a comprehensive review and audit are needed. The experience also points to the need for a careful review in terms of the current expectations by the public and governments for setting standards, monitoring and tough and appropriate penalties for non-compliance.”
I would like the government of BC to keep our waters in the hands of the public not ther hands of private corporations. The water rights must stay with the people of
BC in order to ensure the people’s rights to water that is recognized in the Canadien Constitution.
I do not agree with the “Modernization of the BC Water Act”, a process that has suggested the introduction of a market-based allocation system for water licenses (or a water market). The implications of such a framework are very serious. Water-markets would essentially remove regulatory control over the allocation of water and allow for allocation priorities to be determined by a market and purchasing power. This is taking away the trust that the public has put in the government to repressent the interest of the people and to ensure the rights of all people to a very basic need for life which is water. It is wrong for anyone to own the water that we share. Corporate interests should not be prioritized over the interests and needs of eco-systems and the public. Water should not be made a commodity because of how essential it is to life and no one has a right to own it.
I agree with Christina when she said “It is wrong for anyone to own the water that we share. Corporate interests should not be prioritized over the interests and needs of eco-systems and the public. Water should not be made a commodity because of how essential it is to life and no one has a right to own it.”
Where is capitalisum going to end.
If this “Modernization of the BC Water Act”, goes thru, that will only leave two things left to make into commodities…AIR and HUMANS.
I’m thinking “Total Recall”. Not the direction the major inhabitants of this planet should be going.