What lies ahead and how are we doing? And why am I sounding like a fishwife out of water???
Looking at our agenda for the next couple of years:

-Rainwater collection systems need to be included within the building code, in the same fashion as low flush toilets. We are awaiting results from our lobbying. I have heard it is in the works. Lets hope it is not a watered down politically correct version of what we need.

-We need legislative changes to have rainwater and greywater reuse available for in home use in infrastructured areas. This requires a concerted lobbying effort as there is a reasonable concern for health and quality control.

-For the islands, we need a Water Across the Islands water council presenting a united front, increasing government awareness of the unique island water supply problems. The only time a consumer gets interested in water is when they don’t have any, or it isn’t fit to drink. We need a broad based advocacy group with a good deal of foresight. It takes months, if not years to achieve the desired lobbying goals, & we need protective action before the onset of problems.

-We ALL need to lobby to stop the removal of land from the ALR for developers cash grabs. Our lobbying partners for this one could well be Farmers Institutes.

-Farming practices must include the cautionary principle and best practices for water conservation and aquifer preservation. Again, working with Farmers Institutes would be a logical place to start.

-Currently, under the Ministry of Health regulations, did you know that you, with no educational qualifications or aptitudes can legally purvey potable water to a 500 person system?
We must have that changed. What we would like to see is the Washington State method of incremental operator qualification based on the number of connections, starting at 2, not the unverifiable headcount system the Ministry of Health has chosen to use. Every potable water user has a right to know the food product is safe, delivered by a person who knows what they are doing.
The existing regulation is yet another nail in the coffin of quality water purveying in small rural communities, and we are losing our experienced qualified personnel. We think this qualifies as no-brainer #2.
There are plans in the works to cover this with a Watersafe course, much like the Foodsafe course. For something as vital as your drinking water, being as qualified as someone mixing drinks seems to fall short of the mark. But then I live in district with a less than 500 headcount! We are planning to start lobbying on this one in the new year. If you are in a position to offer support, please, see me after the workshop.

-We will be approaching BC Ferries with a generic Gulf Islands water conservation sign for all ferries delivering tourists to our shores.

-For conservation, we need full customer metering for all water systems in BC by 2012 as a condition of an annual operating permit, and it should be funded from within the budgets of water systems, user pay. This speaks to the issue of leak detection on customers properties.
This move requires a mix of lobbying and education of volunteer water boards who are nervous about raising water taxes for their neighbours to enable the boards to cover the costs of managing a small business with depreciating infrastructure. The CRD is not exempt from this lack of metering issue on their island owned and managed systems.

-We need the sales of high consumption toilets banned in BC within 3 to 5 years, to be replaced with dual flush toilets only, the same as Australia. The busiest pub on Mayne, and many of your restaurants, hotels, businesses here in Victoria have high water consuming toilets. Solution? Give them 3 years to convert as a condition of business license renewal.
One dual flush toilet represents a 309% water saving over a 13 L toilet, 23,725 liters per year vs 7,665 L for a dual flush. A low flow showerhead, at 1.6gpm represents a 36% water saving and still delivers a waterflow feeling like a 2.5 gpm shower. Water saved approx 7800 g.p. year.

Action plan for Victorians? Ask your Mayor and Council to give serious thought to this action, and follow up. Saving water is not just a householder conservation issue.

-Bottled water and bulk water transport sales are just large companies making money from your “not necessarily renewable” resource, with no restrictions as to drought timing, long term aquifer destruction, compensation or community needs or consultation. Water is absolutely necessary to life, and yet we hand it over. Lobbying is well underway, as we heard this morning. Google Valemont, BC and check out their battle with a bottled water plant expansion. Sign their petition. It is not just Valemont they are fighting for.

-We need controlling legislation for due diligence when blasting for general building construction . There is no consultation, connection or controls for, or between, licensed (or unlicensed) blasters and the Ministry of Environment, who deal with groundwater legislation, yet blasting can have the same devastating effect on wells as hydrofracturing. This should be factored into Phase 3 of the Groundwater regs.

Purveyors are bogged down by the sheer numbers of regulators overseeing ground and surface water supplies. It is uncoordinated, inefficient and costly. It is sheer hell being a small purveyor of water, yet small purveyors are the lifeblood of water delivery to rural BC communities.
We need to keep these hands on purveyors in business, both with financial support, if necessary, simplified coordinated regulations, and available expertise when needed.
The small purveyor, can, and does, deliver safe potable water to the home more efficiently and cheaper than the CRD. We live on site, and we care deeply about conservation, yet the Ministry of Community Services has an openly stated policy of phasing out Improvement Districts in favour of the CRD remote management for the islands.
Remote management is poor and expensive management, and the Ministry of Community Services has not yet recognized the connection between local administration and conservation.

Conclusions?

- Groundwater is a land use issue for community planning and government oversight. We should not become educated and interested only at the time of development applications.

-Beautiful rural BC does not exist to provide hit and run land speculators with a free ride to the bank. We must watch what local governments are doing in our name, with our dollars and not just on the islands!

-Remote management is the worst of all worlds, for anyone, anywhere ! City solutions do not translate for rural problems. To cities, we ruralists are just another pesky mosquito making noise and without a stinger.

-We could use fewer shelved and unread consultant’s reports. Governments need to put the money on the ground where the demand side manager produces true value with water saving results.

-Because of the lack of stable financing, I worry about the long term fate of our grass roots water advocacy groups, who protect all of our interests when it comes to the long term supply of potable water for future generations. With the urgency of the water issues, advocates cannot afford to fail.

A friend once told me water was not political. How little he really knew!

We cannot live without water. Our land values are negligible without water. We must make sure our BC islands, and rural communities are sustainable, first, for those who have dedicated their lives and finances to living there, volunteering, and supporting local businesses and secondly, we want our young people to be able to live there, and have their kids enjoy the quality of life rural and island living offers. Pull up the draw bridge? Why not?

My little island of 1000 is 100% groundwater reliant, has 12 organized water systems, yet is 50% serviced by single well owners. Why, when Saturna Island, with a long time leaking dam in a non metered CRD district, Tofino, with a council who can’t seem to watch a reservoir level, Okanagan, the source of our local fresh fruit irrigating the valley dry, Texas, Florida, the entire dry state of Georgia, and latest in the news, the State of Arizona, are all facing serious water issues, could we, by any stretch of the imagination, think we are exempt? What is the point of waiting until we are sucked dry? Water conservation is not rocket science.

Be sure to read Water Follies by Professor Morris K. Udall from University of Arizona, writing under the pen name Robert Glennon. Fascinating reading and you will understand the problems of Georgia, Arizona, Maine, Florida and other states, putting you on guard for BC. The North Plains of China, where ½ of the country’s wheat is grown, has only a 30 year supply of groundwater remaining. 41% of China’s wastewater is dumped into the Yangtze river and the water from the Yantze is being piped north and used on fields for irrigation. They have bridges over now dry rivers and the government is pushing yet more development.

We can’t let the biggest straw win, so we must help people off that aquifer straw! Educate them, apply peer pressure, and make sure the tax dollar you give your government goes where it really matters.

Insist your local governments apply demand side management and save millions of tax dollars! Study the example set by the Sunshine Coast Regional District with their free dual flush toilet installation program. Municipal governments must begin to think outside the box and work more closely with the water user.

I believe that every one of you are as qualified as I to speak up on water issues, to enlighten your family and friends on the caring use of our finite water supplies, and to move governments from the “talking head” phase into concrete enforceable action plans, on all stages of water conservation.

I know today, I am speaking with the converted, but you are the demand side manager and the message is yours to deliver. If people are the problem, then people must be included in the solution.

The name of our organization is the Mayne Island Integrated Water System Society, with a membership of 111 from across all islands, including yours, right up to Nanaimo and over in Canada. We are 100% volunteer. Our mandate is educate and facilitate. Again, our website is mayneisland.com/water, e-mail watergulfislands.com

Our membership is $5. I would be delighted to have any one of you join with us.

All of this, and there is not one government department dedicated to water preservation. What does this say?

That’s my rallying cry, and now I have to say thank you for your time and patience while I step down off my broomstick.