I have been following the ongoing dialogue on what to do with our supply of fresh water in Oceanside and beyond. Having been involved in watershed restoration and keeping our fresh water as pristine as possible, a very dark feeling swept over me when
I realized that a plan is afoot to eliminate as much of the “inconvenient fresh water as possible.”
The province has be diluting its environmental assessment responsibility at every turn. Mining, development, highways, construction have no time to be dealing with clean water.
Fish might be living in these waters and this will hold up development. Our extraction of raw material has risen to a fever pitch and even trumps democracy.
Check out the trade agreement with China, signed off by both our province and the federal government — not a word that might negatively impact “the deal.”
After quietly gutting the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the federal government now proposes to dismantle the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, as well as the Fisheries Act. This is the last federal act that gives our potable waters a glimmer of hope.
An idea started to form in my head. The best preserved water is water that is in a reservoir and destined for home use, potable water.
Why are we looking at complicated and costly methods of gathering and storing water in aquifers when there may be better alternatives? Why pump treated water into uncontrolled aquifers and then have to pump the water back out and retreat it before supplying it to consumers?
How can we accomplish multiple objectives of delivering good clean water to households and ensure that a large water source is kept pristine?
What we need is an elevated lake of some size so that gravity would be the delivery tool, not pumps. This way we have quality water delivered at minimum cost and an assurance that the supply would be kept at the highest quality possible.
We have such a source and by the looks of what our government is doing, the only way to save it is by making it a reservoir for Oceanside. That lake is Cameron Lake adjacent to Cathedral Grove.
Bob TritschlerParksville