Mayor's Message - May

Keeping the bathtub full

I write this message with mixed emotions – I hope you have enjoyed the glorious sunny weather in recent days. We are truly blessed to live in such a spectacular area. At the same time, this current heat wave is deeply concerning - the wildfires already in BC and Alberta are reminders of what we could be facing.

The record temperatures mean the melting snow races down the mountains into creeks and into the ocean. Did you know around this time of year it is common for more than 10,000 litres per second to empty through Chapman Creek into the ocean? In the summer, we are happy if we have enough water available to put 200 litres per second into the ocean! 

Just imagine if we had a way to hold back the huge amount of spring water for our use during the summer. The unfortunate fact is we don’t. For the foreseeable future, we can only retain as much water in Chapman Lake as the height of the dam will allow.

I like to use a bathtub analogy. In this case, our bathtub is Chapman Lake. We want the bathtub to remain as full as possible for as long as possible because there is no certainty when we will be able to refill it. Remember, last year, the rain didn’t come until late November.

I think it is also important to know how big our bathtub is – how many days of water does it hold?

I have asked the SCRD to publish more details about how much water we have available.  I think the SCRD also needs to report our water usage, daily, starting immediately. I believe we will all do more to reduce our usage if we know how much we are using.

Other sources of water are vitally important. If Church Road is available this summer, it will help because we can use that water instead of taking water from our bathtub. The same goes for the provincial government. Water could be retained in the tub if we can convince the Province to reduce the minimum flow of water down Chapman Creek at select times when doing so won’t harm the fish stock.

But these and the other options that are being considered do not change the fact that we each need to do everything we can to keep that water in our Chapman Lake bathtub. To me, this means doing MUCH more than stopping outdoor water use. We need to reduce shower times, turn off taps when brushing teeth or washing dishes, run the washing machine or dishwasher only when they are completely full, etc. We are in this together and it’s up to each of us to do our part - we don’t have a choice.

At the District of Sechelt, we are moving ahead with using the well at Dusty Road as a source of non-potable water.  This will be available for the public as well as industrial and commercial users. It may also be sized to fill a fire tanker engine in a matter of minutes, if needed.

In closing, I hope everyone will consider this a challenge for this year. We can and will meet this challenge by working together! What we also need to do is get moving on other solutions so we will not face this sort of problem in future years. Solutions exist!