WATER WARS:
PART ONE
THE FUTURE OF POTABLE WATER:
WHY CANADIAN GULF ISLANDERS ARE THE CANARY IN THE WATER MINE AND WHY THEY 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 mini water war broke out into full fledged finger pointing and accusatory water scarcity 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 go from being taken for granted to becoming scarce, almost overnight.
Part and full time residents 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 for the problem while disowning their own culpability in not having anticipated its inevitability.
Of course 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 additional guest visitors during the summer.
Things got ugly fast.
Bear in mind that this Bay has very 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 wells along much of the road near the ferry landing area, for example, back in the late 80's, or even far earlier.
After a fire which burnt down parts of the local pub, it was seemingly already a well known fact, 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, at which point the glass washing machines would have to be shut down.
Nothing has changed since then - except for the worse.
Ostriches breed and abound at almost the same rate as do those in search of the effortless deal.
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.
Such islands tend to be rather similar to an oversized stationary cruise ship. They are by turns buffeted by winter winds and then, after developing amnesia, they then bask in the summer sun. Each is like a mother ship which has, for years, been facing overstrained limits on that island's collective water, with no port in site for a refill, ever.
Does this make any Gulf Island a logical destination for the homeless. Not really. Nevertheless, a policy is in place to encourage just that portion of the population to relocate, a policy which promises to house any uncapped number who take the trouble to pay for multiple ferries. Indeed homelessness is the platform used by at least one local politician to fire up the loyal votes of those inclined toward an effortless deal in a remote setting. The reasoning is that if the islanders build such homes and tax fund them in perpetuity, the most desirable contributors to a community will be certain to line up. Island of dreams: Build it and they will come.
Economic "enhancement" schemes aside, population reduction through people who choose to leave the island would appear to be a mixed blessing in its own right, at least from the point of view of the present limitations revealed by both the results of top expert water studies and by the island's own overview studies of the upper limits of water and sewage vis a vis development.
And that seems to be exactly how at least some often find themselves arriving right back at the lifeboat logic again.
Instead, say, for example, islanders 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. Indeed one of the covenant holders is still alive.
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 exceeding the land's carrying capacity, or pollution, or both.
Granted, on larger acreages this filtration problem does not present the same problem, nor does it become evident when it does, and granted there is naturally more land available to absorb the errors of excess, 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, Dry G 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 islanders 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.
SEEMING 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.
WATER WARS: PART TWO
The Scoop On Poop:
Well, no water story would be complete without a sewage story to round it out, since the two issues are unavoidably intimately linked.
Once upon a time there was a serious hepatitis outbreak on a well known Canadian Gulf island, an outbreak which was then carried off island by those who were served food (this was well over a decade and a half ago) at a makeshift local restaurant. Those who ran the "no cooking on site" restaurant apparently brought home cooked meals and sold these to the seated public.
However, those who had served those same meals to the paying public had handled the food and cleaned up after the patrons without benefit of any running water and with access only to an outhouse with no actual place for them to wash their hands.
The Environmental Health investigating inspector who ultimately closed down this notorious restaurant at that time arrived to close down this operation which was in total violation of the Health Act.
He was confronted by a group of upset restaurant wannabes and their support group. The supporters brought forward a person from the midst of the gathering crowd of protesters. This fellow they said had the natural authority to act as their spokesperson, someone whom they referred as one of Hornby's "deeply respected elders".
The Elder, who shall remain nameless, pulled himself up to his full height and quietly but decidedly informed the Health Inspector that he and his fellow islanders did not "believe" in "the theory of germs".
Apparently soon thereafter Environmental Health, the precursor to VIHA or Vancouver Island Health Authority, unofficially "signed off" on actively pursuing similar Gulf Island health violation issues on this island. Wonder why?
Rumour has it that this was due in part to the the initial protest by locals at that time, those who not only voiced loud objections but insisted that such inspections constituted a draconian form of "persecution" against those whose priorities were such that they simply could not afford to be environmental or even to meet any official health standards at all.
Ironically, although the price tag back then was a mere fraction of the one now, at the rate at which the cost of being environmentally conscientious is rising, that line of reasoning, once considered absurd obfuscation, even if those at the time held intransigently to a world view not informed by science, has a point. It costs money to be conscientious.
In fact, since those simple times, it has become prohibitive to install even the most affordable choice of all, a conventional septic field, let alone to maintain one effectively enough so that it will continue to operate properly.
Consequently, VIHA's standard, while reasonable in theory, in practice creates for some a prohibition mentality and continues to serve as an effective deterrent to any real solution to existing septic violations on island.
Given the risk of being fined, or worse, some people do nothing at all other than hide their untreated sewage.
After that notorious hepatitis outbreak incident, septic pollution complaints were more often than not ignored on this island.
In fact, in reply to those who found escalating faecal coliform counts in their downhill wells and who therefore deemed themselves to be at risk from neighbouring septic leaching and contamination, the Enviro Health took to saying:
"We don't want a witch hunt".
While largely ignoring the subdivision mess already created on the island in question by a certainn realty company's earlier dealings, instead EH tightened up sewage installation standards for future subdivision approval.
Those who did nothing but try to go by the book to install a septic field were subjected to this new "spare field" strict rule. Meanwhile those who were quietly polluting their neighbours drinking water by dumping existing raw sewage into the ground uphill from or in the vicinity of same were simply left to do so.
To some this result might seem like a case of the classic "bottom up" dictatorship of the honest many by the cheating few.
Whatever else it may be, the fact remains that attaching too steep a monetary price to being or becoming domestically environmentally friendly is hardly any true incentive to find a way to live lightly upon the earth without fouling it and making one another ill.
Locally on this island there is plentiful innovative talent, an extraordinary amount of creative thinking which has been applied to legitimising progressive alternative approved septic treatment systems. All are offered choices such as peat moss sewage treatment, cultured wetlands, vegetative filtration systems, closed ozone/ultra violet re-circulating systems, and small treatment plants for condensed septic fields.
The catch, though, is that virtually every environmentally aware approach is far more expensive than a conventional field and can cost $25,000 to $35,000 to install (compared to $15,000 to $18,000 for a conventional field). And that does not take into consideration VIHA's additional requirement that one hire an independent engineer, that is if you want to do anything except install a conventional field (plus a spare field). Even then, you must already own a large enough parcel of land to accommodate the two requisite conventional fields plus leaving enough room for a house and correct distances to a well.
However, when it comes to the owners of such fields taking individual responsibility for our own shit, -er, sewage, it seems we have not come very far.
Maintenance of one's own system, whatever kind it is, remains "voluntary and optional".
Manifest democracy is filled with such counter productive contradictions.
On the one hand, VIHA is a bureaucracy which is obliged to impose on you the obligation to place your septic field a minimum of 100 ft away from anyone else's well, with a distance of 150 feet currently under future consideration, due to increased recent flooding over saturating the soil.
On the other hand, health authorities and/or neighbour each seem to have little power over whether or not those who don't care fail to take precautions and continue to pollute a neighbour's well, - so long as that particular situation pre-exists the new regulations.
Oddly, it does permit one's neighbour to install his well as close as he may so desire to your pre-existing septic field, ... just not the other way around. Anyone who already has had a well drilled thereby legally pre-empts any plans for a neighbour's septic field, if such will encroach in any way.
Of course, on 150 X 150 half acre lots there is already barely enough room for one septic field, one house and one well, let alone for meeting the new standard (which does not apply to existing subdivisions), namely nearly 6,000 sq. ft of space to provide room for two septic fields. One can only suppose that any existing older septic field which fails anywhere in one of Hornby's subdivisions must be reconstructed all over again, probably on the same spot.
A half acre lot is all of 14,400 square feet in total.
This only sounds like a lot of room, that is until you realise that in order for one's well to have potable water it must be an absolute minimum of 100 feet from all surrounding septic fields, from all ditches, all water courses, any and all wells, and all steep slopes, as well as set back from any boundary, including any of these being your own. And then there must still be left over sufficient space and requisite distances for placement of even the smallest of houses.
As mentioned, VIHA's new rules appear to be that every new subdivision development must leave enough room for not only ONE conventional septic field and the attendant land clearing (and potentially tree gobbling) which that normally involves, but for TWO fields, the second one a prerequisite separate "back up" field which must be left fallow and equidistant from the well, to serve as a fallback system when the first field eventually fails.
Less trees, more global warming.
More global warming, more flooding.
More flooding, more septic contamination.
In addition, the rule is that no driveway or structure may be situated either too near to or on top of this 6,000 sq. ft. dedicated sewage area.
This regulation often leads to landowners bulldozing forest land in order to create enough room for two required fields, one dormant.
Okay, so maybe this regulation is supposed to act as a deterrent for controlling future development.
Here is one question, though.
Exactly how would it do so?
Does prohibition stop people from drinking?
Of course not.
Well neither do rigid septic regulations stop people from covertly polluting existing subdivided land and other adjoining parcels.
Only the new applicant pays the price after applying for a permit, and only those with cash to spare can afford to hire an engineer if they want to install an enlightened approach to septic treatment.
Meanwhile, this same island's subdivisions already has more than a few instances of multiple dwellings sitting on half acre lots while exceeding the septic capacity of the original field.
That short sightedness creates an automatic doubling of density without consideration of the land's carrying capacity, while dramatically increasing water demand and sewage out fall on any given half acre lot.
And for those who argue that a Gulf Island can easily afford well planned higher density, first check how other more densely populated locations currently handle their sewage.
The Capital Regional District has plans, certainly, but so far to date still continues to pump its directly into the ocean and has done so for countless decades, well before it grew as large as it is now.
In addition, ... Catch this "22":
Conventional septic systems are known, even in official health circles, as "creeping failure systems".
Even if one flushes the system by "dosing" the exit pipes with high pressure water and/or otherwise maintains the initial exit pipes and/or pumps the two partition conventional septic tank, these still can and do eventually fail or turn anaerobic.
And even if one decides to install a composting toilet in any new island construction, one still must still install two conventional fields, one for back up, whether these are ever going to be used or not.
Yet despite acknowledgement by VIHA that there are indeed better approved treatment systems out there than the conventional one, systems which are low impact and which do not fail if maintained, conventional systems have been the only septic system field sizes permitted by VIHA, in new subdivisions on island, at any rate.
LOOSELY TRANSLATED HERE IS MY TAKE ON THE SEPTIC POLICY:
SOONER OR LATER, A CONVENTIONAL FIELD IS GOING TO FAIL.
THEREFORE, WE WANT ALL FUTURE SUBDIVISIONS TO HAVE TWO OF THEM.
FURTHER WE WILL NO LONGER APPROVE ANYTHING ELSE, EXCEPT ON EXISTING SUBDIVISIONS.
THIS LOGIC DOES NOT APPLY TO EXISTING 25 or 30 YEAR OLD SYSTEMS WHICH MAY ALREADY BE FAILING, NOR TO THOSE RESIDENTS WITHOUT A PUMP-ABLE OUTHOUSE, AND/OR WITHOUT ANY FORM OF GRAY WATER TREATMENT AND/OR EVEN WITHOUT ANY OUTHOUSE AT ALL.
Can you think of an approach to health and the environment which would more effectively cause some people (and yes, we do have them) to hide what they are currently doing, or, more to the point, not doing about their own polluting sewage?
Can you imagine such persons proactively approaching health authorities in search of reasonable solutions if such persons already live in a house without benefit of any septic system?
I wager they'd be more likely to run the other way, if only to avoid inviting in any authority which would have the power to ultimately take away the status quo of the way they are living their lives.
On the contrary, I think the current approach drives people's private sewage behaviour "underground", pardon the pun.
Something must be responsible for the discovery of sudden surges in faecal coliform count out of tourist season, discovered by those dedicated stewardship people at the bottom end of Hepatitis Hill subdivision, but who do you know who openly admits to flushing directly into the ground?
Conventional septic systems, which also treat grey water, create the largest footprint of any system, yet they are considered by VIHA to be as close as it gets to "idiot proof", - meaning even with little or no maintenance they take a long time to fail.
Not to say that they won't fail.
They definitely do.
Just continue to not ever tend to yours, nor maintain balance in, minimise impact on, or ever pump your septic tank and maybe even drop whatever tank killing agent you want into your toilet.
You will soon see how long it takes for a conventional septic tank's exit pipes to clog completely.
Visualise the conventional septic system as analogous to your heart.
Imagine those septic tank exit pipes just as if they were increasingly clogged arteries from years of a poor diet.
Arteries carry oxygenated blood out to the system.
Septic field tanks require oxygen too, to keep cooking and carry on.
If they turn anaerobic (having to do with or caused by anaerobes or by the absence of free oxygen) they stop working.
(A similar analogy holds true for the human heart).
Supposedly, conventional fields are hard to harm and theoretically are designed to last for 30 years.
However, no one seems to be able to confirm if this holds true when they are actively abused or ignorantly neglected.
The conventional approach to sewage disposal is deemed the only choice approved by the "Health Authority", unless, as mentioned, a privately hired engineer becomes involved in the process.
So, to compound the dilemma of making personal environmental choices affordable, while they do have their place, so far the conventional creeping failure system is also far and away the most affordable, as well as being the only one (make that two) system directly approved by VIHA in that specific and until very recently notoriously backward location, at least.
In addition, even if anyone wants to be environmentally conscientious, and can afford the mandatory requirement to privately hire an engineer who will approve an alternative system, they STILL first must get their land approved for two traditional large septic fields anyway!
Only then, I gather, will the health authority step back out of the issue and permit the stamp of approval by yet another authority.
So, not only do enlightened alternative systems cost far more, but on top of that one must be very flush in order to be environmental.
Welcome to Catch 22, the circular logic on which most bureaucracy runs.
Labels: WATER
