EDITOR:
As the Vancouver Island Water Watch Coalition continues to prepare for a two day Water Forum in Nanaimo on May 29th and May 30th, 2010, articles suddenly appear that act as reminders of why we activists do what we do.

The following is from Ingmar Lee back in December 2000 and exposes the damning affects of clear cut logging, particularly when the public does not own the watershed;

Article from Vancouver Indymedia - http://www.vancouver.indymedia.org/

Weyerhaeuser polluting Nanaimo drinking-watershed
by Ingmar Lee 1:05am Sun Dec 3 '00

Weyerhaeuser owns the Nanaimo drinking-water sanctuary, which supplies 72,000 residents. A recent 'Freedom of Information' request to the City of Nanaimo, which jointly manages the watershed with Weyerhaeuser has revealed that the giant U.S. company has spread 44 tons of chemical fertilizers on 1000 hectares of clearcuts since 1998.

Huge amounts of industrial chemical fertilizers are being spread in our forests. Even inside community drinking water sanctuaries!

Recently I received a FOI package from the Greater Nanaimo Water District, GNWD. It shows that 44 tons of chemical fertilizers were spread within the City drinking watershed since 1998 on 1000 hectares of clearcuts, without the city's notice.

The City of Nanaimo and Weyerhaeuser jointly manage the area, but Weyerhaeuser did not inform the GNWD about the fertilizer usage, and the City did not become aware of the program until February this year. Tests of the fertilizer ingredients were not even known until April, although our own tests of the fertilizer in February found it laced with cadmium and other carcinogenic heavy metals.

Weyerhaeuser also neglected to inform the Auditor General of BC about the massive fertilization inside the Nanaimo drinking watershed. He examined the area as one of 8 case studies in his 1998-99 report "Protecting Drinking-Water Sources." References to drinking-water pollution from fertilizer use are otherwise peppered throughout the report.

A recent news-flurry in Nanaimo newspapers has resulted in a barrage of phone calls from concerned citizens, so the GNWD has commissioned a research scientist, Dr. Robert Lockhart to do a study on the problem for $4500. Thats right, Dr. Lockhart will make a report for $4500, and the GNWD will make important drinking-water management descisions based on this report.

Dr. Lockhart works for BC Research Inc. which is involved with tree plantation biotechnology, or "agro-forestry" which also involves massive use of chemicals as growth promoters and retardants of trees and other plants in forestry operations. The enclosed letter is where I'm at with this so far.

Sincerely, Ingmar

EDITOR:
We now have the Provincial Government requesting thoughts from the public about amendments to the Water Act. Although many of us are of the opinion this request is merely "window dressing", if we don't participate, they will go ahead and do what they want without us even having the ability to go back on them publicly in regard any future plans for amendments. Below are comments again from Ingmar as well as the web page address;

Well, if the Gordon Campbell government was serious about protecting water, they could start by protecting designated community drinking-watersheds from the incessant scourge of logging. Take a Google Earth flight over the Nanaimo drinking watershed for example and see the horrific legacy of private-land logging. The entire 350 sq.km. drinking watershed has been stripped of not only every stick of its once-magnificent primaeval forest cover, but so too have the second forests been stripped off. The Jump Lake reservoir, from where the residents of Nanaimo obtain their drinking water has the highest concentration of logging roads in the province. After heavy rains, massive turbidity plumes can be seen running into the lake. The entire watershed was utterly destroyed by the giant American logging corporation, Weyerhaeuser, which after buying out Mac/Blo, immediately proceeded to clearcut 4 separate 100 hectare tracts of old-growth which had been set aside for the benefit of Blacktail deer. The entire watershed is owned as ‘private land’ with virtually zero oversight nor even the slightest environmental protections. Weyerhaeuser, unbeknownst to the Greater Nanaimo Water District spread more than 60 tons of chemical fertilizers into the area around Jump Lake before it was proven that the Agrium product they were using was derived from US industrial waste containing dioxins.

If the Campbell government is serious about protecting the water supply, it should immediately confiscate all privately held community drinking water supply areas, and designate all such areas, public and private, as off-limits to any sort of logging. We need the very highest standards of protection for these lands which must be set aside solely for the production of pure drinking water, -in perpetuity. Politically, such action would be easily accomplished. However, such action will naturally be resisted from the giant corporations to which the Campbell government is so beholden.


Province tests the waters of social media to Revamp Water Act
By Colleen Kimmett December 22, 2009 01:45 pm
The provincial government is testing the waters of social media with a new blog. It was launched last week, marking the official beginning of the process to revamp B.C.'s century-old Water Act.

"Water defines British Columbia, and over the next 25 years we expect B.C.'s population to grow by another 1.4 million people," stated Environment Minister Barry Penner in a news release. "Our water will have to go a lot further without compromising nature’s needs. The Living Water Smart blog is an interactive way to encourage open dialogue on this important topic. Together, we can determine the steps we must take to protect our water both for today and the future."

The blog includes one post so far (from Penner) and has already attracted a handful of comments, including this one: "you could make a start by protecting the Kettle River, one of the most endangered in BC, by not drawing water away from it to Big White."

David Eaves, a public policy entrepreneur and advisor on open government, called the blog a promising start.

"Now, what would I like to see happen around the government's blog?" he wrote in a recent post on his own blog. "Well, if you want to engage the public why not give them data that you are using internally? It would be great to get recent and historic flow rate data from major rivers in BC. And what about water consumption rates by industry/sector but also perhaps by region and by city and dare we ask. . . by neighborhood? It would also be interesting to share the assumptions about future growth so that professors, thinktanks and those who care deeply about water issues could challenge and test them."

Colleen Kimmett reports for The Tyee.

EDITOR:
As our plans for the Water Forum unfold,. as Editor of this website, I will be posting more information. Keep your eyes open and please mark the dates on your calendar. We have Maude Barlow confirmed!!

PENNERS blog site to leave your comments is:
http://blog.gov.bc.ca/livingwatersmart/2009/12/16/welcome-to-the-province-of-bc%e2%80%99s-living-water-smart-blog/comment-page-1/#comment-57