EDITOR: As you are aware, from reading articles below, there have been numbers of issues raised about the Nanaimo Watershed. One list serve member wrote to the Nanaimo Mayor and Council. They forwarded the letter onto their Water person (Bill Sims) Mr. Sims wrote back to the person who was querying Ingmar's statements. Ingmar wrote to the person querying his statements and cc'd Mr. Sims. That exchange is below:

FROM MR BILL SIMS:
Your email was forwarded to me for a response. First, I would like to thank you for contacting the City directly in seeking clarification about this issue. The Council of the City of Nanaimo has consistently placed the quality of the City’s drinking water as one of its highest priorities, given water’s importance as a cornerstone of public health and confidence, and economic and environmental well-being of any community.

There is much background on the issue of fertilization in the watershed, which I will attempt to cover in a few paragraphs. If you still have questions, please let me know, and I will be happy to try and help you.

· The article from December 3, 2000 was written as part of a concerted effort through the national media to bring attention to the issue of fertilizer affecting tree planters, which then shifted to fertilizer’s impact to drinking water quality. The author made several presentations to City Council and staff, as well as several branches of the Provincial government. The article and letter to the editor contain very little factual information, and appear to attempt to sensationalize the issue.

· The forestry companies operating on their lands within the watershed place a small teabag-sized packet of slow-release fertilizer in the soil adjacent to each sapling replanted. This ensures that the sapling has a better chance of maturing. Reforestation itself reduces erosion, and promotes water quality. Annual harvesting/replanting operations within the watershed typically comprise less than 1% of the land area of 23,000 hectares.

· While the City previously had a comprehensive source water quality testing program in place, it conducted further studies to ensure that the small amounts of fertilizer used during tree planting was not having an adverse affect on drinking water quality. One of the studies commissioned by the City in 2000 addressed the issue of fertilizer specifically. It found that ‘there is no evidence that the drinking water supply has been effected to date by the use of fertilizers in the watershed.’ And ‘There is no evidence to date to support the fact that ongoing use of the fertilizer in the watershed will present a drinking water hazard...’ The full text of this study (Greater Nanaimo Watershed Fertilizer Risk Assessment by BC Research Inc) can be found on the City’s website www.nanaimo.ca >Residents >Water Supply >Water Quality and Treatment, then scroll to the bottom of the page. Or to go directly, you can click here:
http://www.nanaimo.ca/assets/Departments/Engineering~Public~Works/Water~
Services/Water~Supply/Publications~and~Forms/fertilizer.pdf

· The City has an intensive water quality testing program in place for many parameters around potability, which includes metals, herbicides, fertilizers, pesticides. To date, data indicate that herbicides, fertilizers, pesticides are non-detectable, even at parts per billion. Metals, which are naturally occurring, are occasionally detected, but at levels far below thresholds established for drinking water quality. No toxic metals have been detected in the drinking water.

· Since 2004, the City has partnered with the University of Victoria’s Environmental Management of Drinking Water program as an independent research body to determine long-term water quality trends. One of the areas of research includes impacts of forestry practice on drinking water quality. Findings to date indicate that the water has low levels of nutrients (e.g. from phosphorus or nitrogen), and that the water is generally non-productive for algae growth, which makes it excellent as a source of drinking water.

· The City of Nanaimo and forestry companies take drinking water quality extremely seriously, and work closely together to ensure risks are minimized. The parties meet regularly to review harvesting / replanting plans, and to discuss improvements that can be made to protect water quality. The forestry companies have completed watershed assessments, and actively fix issues that appear. (Most of the issues are from sedimentation from potential slope failure or erosion from ditches). In general, sediment in water from forestry activities has been drastically reduced in the past 10 years.

· The City works closely with Vancouver Island Health Authority (Provincial regulator for drinking water). They have consistently reviewed water quality data, and have stated that their belief is there is no risk to drinking water quality due to fertilization.

I invite you to peruse the City’s website on water supply (http://www.nanaimo.ca/EN/main/departments/Engineering-Public-Works/WaterSupply.html) for further information on our future direction, watershed protection, and other water quality reports.

Again, thank you for contacting the City directly with your inquiry. Please feel free to call or email if you have any further questions or if I can clarify any of the above points.

Sincerely,
Bill Sims
Wm. D. Sims, AScT
Manager, Water Resources
City of Nanaimo
250.756.5302
Bill.Simsnanaimo.ca


INGMARS RESPONSE
Bill Sims answers your concerns with the typical old-school environmental illiteracy that has allowed the Nanaimo community drinking watershed to be utterly trashed by giant trans-national logging corporations. He says that "... reforestation itself reduces erosion, and promotes water quality..." but of course, neglects to mention that reforestation happens only after the forest itself has been destroyed, thereby allowing terrible erosion and turbidity to occur. I could never understand why Nanaimo's mayor and council were always so utterly beholden to the idea that industrial clearcut logging should be the primary activity on all the land which produces the water that their citizens have to drink. There are reams of evidence that destroying forests degrades and pollutes water. There are reams of evidence that chemical fertilization pollutes water and causes eutrophication.
Weyerhaeuser spewed more than 60 tons (we're talking semi-truckloads here) into Nanaimo's drinking watershed without even bothering to mention it to officials at the Greater Nanaimo Water District.

In his letter to you Sheila, Mr. Sims evades the fact that the GNWD's own tests proved that chemical fertilizers spread by Weyerhaeuser inside the watershed were laced with dioxins consistent with industrial waste, - dioxins being amongst the most toxic chemicals known to exist. And he also evades the fact that nitrates consistent with fertilizer contamination did show up in random sampling inside the watershed.

It would be very, very easy, politically, to simply expropriate the entire drinking water supply area away from the Bermuda-based logging corporation which now "owns" it. What citizen of Nanaimo, in their right mind, would object to the City owning and controlling the area for the sole purpose of providing pure drinking water to its citizens in perpetuity?? Especially considering that now that the entire watershed is nothing but a steaming-stumpfield and nothing but a tax-burden to the logging corporations which destroyed it. On a planet facing ecological catastophe, pure drinking water is an increasingly, desperately precious resource. I cannot understand the political inertia that is preventing the expropriation of those lands. They should do their duty to the citizens of Nanaimo, and all their future descendents and get control of that watershed.

Cheers, Ingmar