The following was published in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman, Wednesday April 21, 2010.
Congratulations to Cranbrook City Council for their recent signing of the Columbia Basin Water Smart Charter. Setting a target of reducing domestic water use by 20% by 2015 is an admirable start, one that everyone should support. Just drilling a new well to get at even more water is not the answer.
Extra kudos to Mayor Scott Manjak for having the cahones to go further and suggest he’s willing to look at water meters. To say that’s not a popular political move is a vast understatement. However, there is simply no other way to reliably reduce water consumption. A study from Ontario found an average reduction in water use of roughly 30% after meters were installed. There’s your target and then some, right there.
We are water hogs. A report out of University of Victoria in 2001 compared Canada with 28 other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). For water consumption, Canada came in 28th, ahead of only the United States. From 1980 to 2000, water consumption in Canada rose over 25%, more than 5 times the combined OECD rate.
The daily amount of water needed for consumption, basic sanitation, food preparation and bathing is estimated between 60 and 80 litres per household. Let’s be generous and round that up to an even 100L. Average Canadian household water use is well over 300L. Per day. (figures sourced from the Program on Water Governance at the University of British Columbia.)
Meters should be seen more as incentive than tax. I would not support a move to metering strictly for cash grab. In fact having them installed for 6 months or so before any charges would help people learn about their consumption and find ways to reduce it.
Most importantly, I suggest that a certain base volume, rated on a daily average, would carry no charge. Don’t call it free – there most certainly is a cost to all of us for any water use. But in recognition of our requirements for health and sanitation, a basic daily allotment should be provided. Given the numbers above, 100L might be a reasonable domestic number. The number of people per residence would also be factored in. Above that, charges start applying and rise steeply to curb waste.
Marq de Villiers wrote the highly acclaimed book Water in the late 1990s. On the topic of meters, he wrote, “It is important to signal water’s value and to price it so that waste hurts.”
But are water meters just another tax grab? I wouldn’t support them if they were. And here we need to be careful. de Villiers notes bad experiences from Great Britain where cost of water rose over 100% following privatization of water companies. Corporate profits rose almost 700%, with little re-investment into infrastructure. Privatization of our water (and it most certainly is our water) should not occur. I envision a non-profit structure where water charges cover incurred costs of managing the accounts, but any surplus should be re-invested into community environmental programs that encourage water conservation and rehabilitate local waterways.
Domestic water use is not the only issue. For meaningful conservation, industrial use also must come down. Thermal power (generation by fossil fuel and nuclear) is far and away the largest industrial consumer in Canada, followed by manufacturing, according to the Program on Water Governance at UBC. But what we can individually control is a good place to start: our own taps and toilets. Measuring just how much is going down the drain would open many eyes.
Disclosure: I am an Area C resident so would not be directly affected by a requirement by City of Cranbrook to install water meters. However, like most Area C dwellers, I work in the City of Cranbrook and have a vested interest in the city, its environment and its economy. Though my home is on a private well, I support water meters for rural residents such as myself. Whether we draw water from city treatment reservoirs or underground aquifers, it’s all water, it’s all connected and it all needs to be used judiciously and wisely.
Showing posts with label conservation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conservation. Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
The Flathead Conundrum
The following was published in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman.
And they called it Paradise, I don’t know why.
Call some place Paradise, kiss it good-bye.
- The Eagles, from The Last Resort.
A couple trips to Calgary lately have taken me past the main road leading to the Flathead valley. If you don’t know which road it is, find yourself a map and look it up. I’m not going to tell you.
I half expected a large sign to be erected at the turn-off from Highway 3 directing travelers to nirvana. The news lately seems to have been all Flathead, all the time.
Wildsight has been targeting the valley for a while now. Not content with a moratorium on mineral and petroleum exploration and development, their intent remain firmly set on a National Park.
National Geographic has added to the siren call of the Flathead, highlighting the area in its Crown of the Continent campaign encouraging people from all over to come visit the Serengeti of the North.
Is a national park really in the valley’s best interest? While there may be merits to that extent of formal protection, I have trouble supporting it. The Flathead is advertised by park proponents as ‘wild’ or an ‘intact watershed,’ implying there is no significant development within the river’s drainage basin in Canada.
At times, forestry activity has been heavy – chasing beetle epidemics in the 1970s and 80s – but trees grow back much quicker than mountains ripped apart for coal or minerals. Even a giant geezly clearcut looks all soft and fuzzy from a distance within a few years of replanting.
Ultimately, it’s the Flathead’s wildness that appeals to so many. And if the Flathead is still considered wild after a century or more of being ‘unprotected’, then clearly something is going right.
What is going right is there are few people there. There are no towns and the few roads are unmarked, largely unknown and often in miserable shape.
A National Park could very well bring pressure from Ottawa to plant a large brown road sign with a stylized beaver on it somewhere in the Elk Valley (watch for one pointing out Waterton Lakes National Park heading into Pincher Creek). Will there be pressure to pave the road? Put in formal campsites or a visitor centre? Why take the chance?
The shifting sands of Parks Canada Agency management adds little security. In the early 1990’s, Parks was moved to Heritage Canada with the slogan ‘Parks are for People.’ The notion of environmental protection was a distant whim. Then later in the decade, the tide turned. Parks were moved back to the Department of Environment and a national panel on Ecological Integrity shifted the focus back to environment. More recently, Parks Canada Agency operates almost entirely as its own entity and has swung back to the Parks are for People focus with environmental emphasis downgraded. A new park arising under this mandate is very likely to have significant pressures to be marketed for its vast recreational opportunities.
The Flathead is often cited as supporting the greatest density of inland grizzly bears in North America, one result of long-term research by Dr. Bruce McLellan with BC Ministry of Forests and Range. One of Dr. McLellan’s key findings of what limits grizzly bears? Traffic volume. Not so much the road itself, but how much traffic is on it. Gravel’s better than paved, but the best thing for grizzly bears is lack of human presence. Advertising the Flathead as a destination will not help the local grizzly population.
To me, the best option for protecting the Flathead is designating much of it as a Wildlife Management Area (WMA). This would restrict development, but maintain most, if not all the activities currently taking place in the valley.
One the best examples of selecting a WMA over a National Park is the Columbia Wetlands WMA running from Canal Flats to Donald. Local proponents for the WMA wanted to retain hunting and fishing opportunities and felt the full protection of a National Park was not only unnecessary, but unwanted. The leader of that push was the late Ian Jack of Invermere. His job? Chief Naturalist with Kootenay National Park.
So to those seeking greater protection of the Flathead, I ask that you consider more broadly accepted options that may well achieve the ultimate goal most of us want for the Flathead: a wild valley. And please, stop advertising paradise before we kiss it good bye.
And they called it Paradise, I don’t know why.
Call some place Paradise, kiss it good-bye.
- The Eagles, from The Last Resort.
A couple trips to Calgary lately have taken me past the main road leading to the Flathead valley. If you don’t know which road it is, find yourself a map and look it up. I’m not going to tell you.
I half expected a large sign to be erected at the turn-off from Highway 3 directing travelers to nirvana. The news lately seems to have been all Flathead, all the time.
Wildsight has been targeting the valley for a while now. Not content with a moratorium on mineral and petroleum exploration and development, their intent remain firmly set on a National Park.
National Geographic has added to the siren call of the Flathead, highlighting the area in its Crown of the Continent campaign encouraging people from all over to come visit the Serengeti of the North.
Is a national park really in the valley’s best interest? While there may be merits to that extent of formal protection, I have trouble supporting it. The Flathead is advertised by park proponents as ‘wild’ or an ‘intact watershed,’ implying there is no significant development within the river’s drainage basin in Canada.
At times, forestry activity has been heavy – chasing beetle epidemics in the 1970s and 80s – but trees grow back much quicker than mountains ripped apart for coal or minerals. Even a giant geezly clearcut looks all soft and fuzzy from a distance within a few years of replanting.
Ultimately, it’s the Flathead’s wildness that appeals to so many. And if the Flathead is still considered wild after a century or more of being ‘unprotected’, then clearly something is going right.
What is going right is there are few people there. There are no towns and the few roads are unmarked, largely unknown and often in miserable shape.
A National Park could very well bring pressure from Ottawa to plant a large brown road sign with a stylized beaver on it somewhere in the Elk Valley (watch for one pointing out Waterton Lakes National Park heading into Pincher Creek). Will there be pressure to pave the road? Put in formal campsites or a visitor centre? Why take the chance?
The shifting sands of Parks Canada Agency management adds little security. In the early 1990’s, Parks was moved to Heritage Canada with the slogan ‘Parks are for People.’ The notion of environmental protection was a distant whim. Then later in the decade, the tide turned. Parks were moved back to the Department of Environment and a national panel on Ecological Integrity shifted the focus back to environment. More recently, Parks Canada Agency operates almost entirely as its own entity and has swung back to the Parks are for People focus with environmental emphasis downgraded. A new park arising under this mandate is very likely to have significant pressures to be marketed for its vast recreational opportunities.
The Flathead is often cited as supporting the greatest density of inland grizzly bears in North America, one result of long-term research by Dr. Bruce McLellan with BC Ministry of Forests and Range. One of Dr. McLellan’s key findings of what limits grizzly bears? Traffic volume. Not so much the road itself, but how much traffic is on it. Gravel’s better than paved, but the best thing for grizzly bears is lack of human presence. Advertising the Flathead as a destination will not help the local grizzly population.
To me, the best option for protecting the Flathead is designating much of it as a Wildlife Management Area (WMA). This would restrict development, but maintain most, if not all the activities currently taking place in the valley.
One the best examples of selecting a WMA over a National Park is the Columbia Wetlands WMA running from Canal Flats to Donald. Local proponents for the WMA wanted to retain hunting and fishing opportunities and felt the full protection of a National Park was not only unnecessary, but unwanted. The leader of that push was the late Ian Jack of Invermere. His job? Chief Naturalist with Kootenay National Park.
So to those seeking greater protection of the Flathead, I ask that you consider more broadly accepted options that may well achieve the ultimate goal most of us want for the Flathead: a wild valley. And please, stop advertising paradise before we kiss it good bye.
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