The spring peepers are slowly quietening down as the crickets start to come out; I swear I heard one under the living room window the other day, tuning up their rusty violin. And a turtle came up from the marsh behind our house, through the alder thicket and loads of blackberry bushes, to our septic field. She scraped around with her hind legs for a while and then (presumably) laid eggs and went back down to the marsh. This is only the second time we’ve seen her since we’ve lived here, and each time I wonder what brings her up here, what homing instinct says: “let’s go up the hill to that level flat spot on the other side of the fence.” It’s not an easy journey for a turtle.
This time of year I have water on my mind. On May 1 the snowpack on Vancouver Island was at <27% of normal, and reached 0% of normal by June 15. Basically, there’s been no snow left for a few months. It also didn’t seem like winter was rainy enough to fill our aquifers. Now the weather is dry and hot, the grasses drying in the fields, making good fodder for wildfires.
As the BC River Forecast Centre notes in their snow-survey bulletin, “Below-normal snowpack in southern regions, earlier-than-normal lower elevation snowmelt, and warm seasonal weather forecasts are elevating drought hazards this upcoming season, particularly along the southern coast and southern interior.”
Water is scarce on the South Island. We were at Drought Level 3 on June 4th, and we’re also at Stage 2 watering restrictions. At this rate, it won’t be long until we hit Drought Level 4 and Stage 3 water restrictions, which seems earlier than it has been in past years.
We’ve been here for 11 years, and have really noticed the change in weather in that time. Drought conditions have become commonplace for at least the last five years. In response, we’ve shrunk our gardens down so they need less water, and have decommissioned the veggie garden as summer is not conducive to rain anymore. We have low flow toilets and showerheads, and reuse water where we can—like watering the plants with water used to boil eggs. But we worry about our well which, when we pulled out the pump to replace it, seemed as though it was squeezing water out of mud. Not something you want to see in your well; it’s good that we have a water purification system.
There is a development near our house where the water supply dries up in the summer. They get water delivered from the community well up the street from us (that community has a lot of water because they’re hooked into a productive aquifer; unfortunately, we’re not). A water truck comes down our road and fills up at the fire hydrant, then drives to the development and puts the water in their well. The truck makes several trips a day in summer—looks like they might have to start early given our current weather conditions. Up to 30⁰C for the week, then down to 17⁰C with cloud and hopefully rain for the weekend.
In 2022, a rickety building on 6 acres on a busy corner about 20 minutes from our house, burned down. It was just waiting for a developer to snatch it up. Two businesses are now working together on The Stonebridge Community project. They’ve bought up the surrounding land, and plan to build 1000 new homes on 150 acres.
But given our water situation, is it smart to build another development that will strain our water supplies even farther? Where is the water coming from to service those homes? The original planning documents say that Stonebridge “…will [be] integrated with the existing community water system and the development will be responsible for providing its own source of water into the system.” But it doesn’t specify where that water will come from or how sustainable that water source is.
It’s a tough decision, because the development will include 150 low-income units and 150 seniors’ units, which we don’t have much of in the Valley. It will also have a grocery store, a pharmacy, and a doctor’s office (which we really need). The developers also note that Stonebridge will be 40% parkland, including three stormwater ponds.
There are no easy answers to situations like this, but I think water should be our first and foremost consideration before we move forward with any development at all. Nobody should have to rely on getting water from a water truck every summer, just because a developer was negligent in forecasting water supply vs. water use.
/end rant
