Part One: Water War Warnings or THE NEW OIL

THE FUTURE OF POTABLE WATER:

WHY CANADIAN GULF ISLANDERS SHOULD HAVE IN PLACE A SPECIFIC VISIONARY BY-LAW TO PROVIDE FOR PREREQUISITE RAIN CATCHMENT SYSTEMS AND RAINWATER CISTERNS AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF CONSIDERATION OF NEW DEVELOPMENTS, BUILDINGS AND ANY AND ALL FUTURE ISLAND HOUSING.

Only a few years ago a water war broke out into full fledged finger pointing and nasty backlash behaviour in a less known Bay on a well known Canadian gulf island.
Did anyone elsewhere on island know about it?
Maybe a few.
Probably not most.
When this happened, all it took was for water to become scarce.
Many living there over at the Bay immediately took on that classic human stance, the first choice of so many otherwise seemingly mature people, namely, blaming others.
Each in turn claimed to be innocent themselves of any water sins of excess.
At the same time, people began to accuse everyone else living around them of taking showers too often, of flushing too many times, of having too many non paying additional guest visitors in summer.
It got ugly fast.

Bear in mind that this Bay has relatively few seasonal rentals compared to most densely populated other parts of the island.
It was already "well" known that saline intrusion had, years earlier, been detected in the Bay's own communal water cistern.
This was to be expected, even if ignored, especially given that any increasing demand for fresh water had already pulled the Pacific Ocean into fresh water wells in too many locations all over the rest of this Gulf Island.

The Bay is not unique when it comes to ignoring warning signs.
Undetectable saline was already known to be present in much of the road near the ferry landing area, for example, back in the late 80's, or even far earlier.
After the famous fire which burnt down parts of the local, it was seemingly well known, even if at that time ignored, that apparently a compromised septic system was not rebuilt when the buildings which use it were rebuilt.
Even eighteen year ago many already often witnessed the bar water routinely run out in mid summer, and the glass washing machines would have to be shut down.
Nothing has changed since then - except for the worse.
Ostriches breed and abound.

Saline, especially undetectable saline, meaning ocean water intrusion into fresh water wells, is deadly. It is a serious health risk for pregnant women and their children, for creating heart disease and high blood pressure, and really, for anyone, even for pets.
Imagine drinking water and getting more and more thirsty by doing so.
The number of wells which produce saline water after the driller is done and paid might astound most locals living in wilful ignorance or oblivious bliss on island.

However, the real question is this:

Why would the local situation be otherwise?
Any Gulf Island is, after all, a remarkably small land mass with distinct limits.
Rather like an oversized stationary cruise ship, our island is by turns buffeted by winter winds and then basks in the summer sun, a mother ship which has, for years, been facing overstrained limits on the island's collective water, with no port in site for a refill, ever.

Economic enhancement schemes aside, population reduction through people who choose to leave the island would appear to be a mixed blessing, at least from the point of view of the present limitations in our own overview of the upper limits of water and sewage.
And that seems to be exactly how one often find oneself arriving right back at the lifeboat logic again.
Instead, say, for example, we might pursue other options, beginning with developing a true willingness to face the following facts:
It is well past the time to consider a completely sustainable island future while we still can.
Perhaps we need to create new by-laws. Couldn't we consider a by law which demands combining rainwater collection and cultured wetlands septic all in one? How about putting this into a small footprint of densely constructed, collectively attached houses.
Is there some really good reason why this necessary conservation of precious water could not be be built into the future of any consideration of housing construction on that most vulnerable lifeboat itself, Hornby Island, a microcosm of the globe's dilemma?
Call me a voice in the wilderness.
Or is that a voice in the former rain forest which later became another desert? Or write it all off as a voice in the wilderness, doomed to see too far ahead.

Ironically, the aquifers which Gulf Island dwellers do share tend to be over demanded and then they show the first symptoms of running dry on many properties which are those doomsday foretelling small half acre lots, which means only that properties in subdivisions are the first ones to manifest the problems of the future of water which we all face, the problem of exceeding the carrying capacity of the island itself.
Imagine gigantic fresh water taps, in at least several of the average Gulf island's year round densely populated subdivisions, which are turned on and get left open to run non stop, year round.
Well, that seems to be pretty much what we are looking at with island subdivisions.
To add to that problem further, imagine a community which looks the other way, or cries poor or victim when people flush sewage directly into the ground with no septic tank, no septic field, and with absolutely no means to filter either their own wells or those of their downhill neighbours from the bacteria laden filth they dispose of without a second thought.
Welcome to reality. You think you are poor now? Try later when the bill for disease and social chaos arrives.

Interestingly, there also seems to be some kind of will to collectively ignore the following fact about our most densely populated areas:

On at least one Gulf island in particular, there are three criminally small subdivisions (approved decades ago by a gang of politicians in cahoots with a realty comapny for obscene profit) all properties in those subdivisions have in place, part time ONLY recreational residential use ONLY restrictive covenants, which are sitting right there in plain print on the land title document for every property there and elsewhere on island.

Okay, okay, don't shoot the messenger! Don't blame fact finding journalism for awakening Rip Van Winkle.
Why let the most limited thinkers be the ones to drag every else down?
Why not try to solve the problem instead, one ozone water filter at a time,- or by investigating whatever works?

Sure, the realty company and greedy developers had an incentive to subdivide too small lots when selling off properties on this and other Gulf Islands, so they ignored the very problem they knew existed in the first place. They did so by putting that very same restrictive covenant on every proposed subdivision application for the subdivision's approximately half acre properties on this Gulf Island. That is precisely how the rich developers got around the sticky legal problem of knowing that there would not be enough water in the future to supply so many households, once the subdivisions got built out.
That was way back when the realty vendors did the dirty deed for this island.
Now, of course, that gang of indifferent developers is long gone. But are we any different? By that I mean, what about our collective indifference to our own island limits, an attitude which is right here, right now, still alive and growing unwell?

However, lest we too easily dismiss the legal obligation of current property owners to uphold that RECREATIONAL USE ONLY covenant, it is a fact that at least one covenant holding member is also still alive and well.
And, along with every property owner, and every renter, that covenant holding man, too, is responsible for enforcing the legality of the "Recreational Use Only" restrictive covenants for all individual island properties in subdivisions
That means that each and every one of the covenants is still valid.
Did these ever make an iota of difference?
No.
Who is to blame?
Everyone.
Are the covenants ignored?
Of course.
Do those affected first, meaning those in the subdivisions, see it as someone else's obligation to clean up the problem they too created? Probably. How many see it as a situation to be solved individually, by owners? Not many.

The reality is this:
Those covenants mean that those who rent, those who own and or those who however temporarily occupy housing in these three subdivisions are actually in violation of the original intent of the "Recreational Seasonal Use Only" legal covenants on title for on each and every subdivision property on this Gulf Island.
And that situation describes a LOT of full time residents.

So much for the meaningful application of a covenant as an environmental or legal tool to prevent over demand or pollution or both.

Granted, on larger acreages this filtration problem does not present the same kind of problem, or at least not as quickly does it become evident and there is naturally more land available to absorb the error, at least in the summertime.
Does that solve the problem? Not really. It only speaks to the carrying capacity of larger properties exceeding the carrying capacity of tiny ones never intended for full time use. Still, when one then learns that several subdivisions were long ago privately nicknamed Hepatitis Hill, or that other name of notoriety is also referred to as the Gulch, it certainly puts a whole new coloration on the emerging problem and whose private responsibility it is or should be for solving this serious situation now, not later.
Of course, this also means that there is a far higher risk of sewage pollution spreading, in several ways.
One way would be through encouraging further year round development.
Another way would be through ignoring further year round demand on the island's carrying capacity, by larger numbers, be it by those who own property and have non paying visitors, by those who rent out existing houses, or by those who own resorts which encourage exceeding the carrying capacity.
It makes little difference to the water table whether the rentals are carried on seasonally or year round.
One larger year round family makes the same demand as weekly large groups do.
In fact, if the off islander ignores the rules they tend to run dry.
Impact for the island as a whole is strictly a feature of the carrying capacity of any individually owned land.
Carrying capacity means water in and sewer out.

Densely populated areas are the first ones to manifest how water is going to become polluted by those who, for whatever reason, do not pump their septic tanks or have none.
The fact is that the water table carries such pollution far and wide during the wettest winter months, not during the summer.
This is when the water table carries failing septic system contents everywhere else.
In summer the ground is parched dry and can then absorb more flushes per household, This does not, however, excuse any landowner permitting the land in question to exceed its own carrying capacity.
But neither is seasonal rental the only way to pollute.
As for summer demands, it would seem that most discover the limits of the water table we all share only when water simply runs dry or gets detectable salt, or both, - just as it did in the Bay.
By late fall sewage excesses have presumably been filtered, if the field has not failed, that is, and the flushed water then returns to the water table, theoretically renewed.
Or so one would hope, since anything we drink comes from the same place into which we flush our sewage.

An international water authority warned these islanders some years ago that they had long ago used up all fossil or old stored aquifer water.
We are, and have been for some time, one hundred percent dependent on rain water renewal.
With climate change, there may even be more rain than ever, but there is also far more water run off into the ocean than there has ever been before.

80% of rainwater runs off. If we are lucky 20% at most is retained.
Hornby is in a negative gain position regarding that most essential resource, fresh water.
None can live without it for more than three days.

Meanwhile, back in the Bay, one of three local "canary subdivisions in the water mine", otherwise "civil" people soon found that tempers flared.
Accusations flew in all directions.
Neighbours turned on formerly friendly fellow neighbours.
Anger mounted.
Then ....
Someone thought to simply raise the foot valve in the Bay Association's communal well.
Since the Bay's "temporary" over demand on the fresh water table had already caused the dangerous intruding salt water to rise even further, it seemed that the only "logical" answer was to raise the pump's foot so that it was once again resting in fresh water.
Salt water, by definition, is heavier than fresh water.
PROBLEM:
Scarce, salty water.
SOLUTION:
Raise the foot valve.
Okay, so maybe most also cut back somewhat, at least temporarily, on fresh water usage and also, since use goes unmonitored, most hoped that their neighbours did the same.
And then it all "went away".
End of the Bay's salt water intrusion problem, right?
Well, it would seem that the problem had been solved.
But in truth, had it?
Apparently, this neighbourhood thought so.
Sadly, such may well be an example of about how far ahead the average human thinks or plans, even in a very dry location.

Regards,