Delegation: Call to turn off funding tap for water conservation & CVRD Challenged about 'water facts'

The subject is from the headlines of the newpaper coverage of my delegation to the Water Committee.   The point I was making was that CVRD staff used incorrect and misleading data to trick the WC and the CVRD board to spend lots of our money on unneeded water conservation activities.

Philip Round's (Comox Valley Echo) coverage is [here] and Scott Stanfield's (Comox Valley Record) is [here].  They saw the presentation from different perspectives.  Together they both did a good job.

I want the increase in bulk water rate for water meters, 12 cents per cubic metre, almost a million dollars, removed from the bulk rate.  That would reduce the water cost for Courtenay, Comox and the Electoral Areas.  They should then reduce their local rates or apply it to other local requirements.

The Bylaw not only lets the Regional District keep those funds but also proposed future rate increases to make up for the anticipated loss of their revenue by use using less water.

Update:  In spite of the delegation and the facts presented, the Water Committee supported the bylaw and it was approved by the Board on May 31, 2011.  The only director who opposed it was Larry Jangula.

Richard

Summer water restrictions lead to BC Hydro releasing water

I have been trying to show we do not need tough new water restrictions or extra water efficiency measures.  [The BCHydro] article in the July 06, 2010 Echo proves my point

The flow in the river will increase by slightly more than double every Tuesday and Wednesday for the next five weeks.

Those are two of the four watering days permitted by our Water Restriction Bylaw.  So the water that we could have put on our gardens or lawns has been dumped in the ocean instead.

The Comox Lake reservoir, which holds the drinking water for most of the Comox Valley, remains full. Flows may have to increase even more if the hot weather expected materializes and increases water coming from snow melting in the mountains. The dam is currently just 30 centimetres from spilling over the lip of the dam.

BC Hydro says they will spill water for two days each week until mid August if not longer.

This proves that there was no need for a bylaw to impose Stage 2 water restrictions by the calendar rather than on an as needed basis.  There is no need to hire a full time bylaw enforcement contractor to deal with only water matters.

BC Hydro says they are releasing water for the benefit of fish but the primary reason they are doing so is that the lake is full and is expected to keep full for the rest of the summer.

The total licensed water use from Comox Lake and the Puntledge River is 35 m³/s. The major water users include BC Hydro use of water for power generation, which is diverted
into the Penstock at the Puntledge Diversion Dam at 28.34 m³/s, Federal Department of Fisheries & Oceans and BC Hydro for conservation use 5.67 m³/s, and the Regional
District of Comox Strathcona for the Comox Valley Water Supply System uses 0.29 m³/s. They have applied to increase their license to 0.32 m³/s.

As pointed out in [one of my earlier papers], our water use is insignificant in relation to the water available.  Our water licence is for 0.83% of the water licenced.  We are permitted to use, but don't about 5% as much as alloted for DFO conservation (fish), and we only use about 1% of what BC Hyro uses to produce power. 

We only use about 75% of our summer water licence limit but the Regional District thinks we should use 27% less per year with most of the reduction coming in the summer.  That doesn't make sense.

Richard