Canada needs to develop a new "water ethic" to deal with the detrimental impact climate change is having on Canada's water system, says a recent report out of Simon Fraser University.
The report, created by the Adaptation to Climate Change Team (ACT), was spearheaded by Bob Sanford, the EPCOR chair of the Canadian Partnership in support of the United Nations "Water for Life" Decade.
It calls on politicians for serious and immediate policy changes that will implement water conservation efforts, as well as public awareness campaigning.
"The report outlines a new national proposition on water that aims to strengthen Canada's economy and ensure its environmental sustainability, while at the same time enhancing our nation's adaptive capacity in the face of growing climate change effects," Sanford said at a press conference Tuesday morning.
One of the principal findings, Sanford said, was that global warming is changing the way water moves through the hydrological cycle in many parts of Canada.
"We are beginning to experience deeper and more persistent droughts, and these are very costly," he said. "We're also beginning to experience the same intense rainfall and flooding events that are becoming more common widely elsewhere in the world."
He said these kind of weather events will likely become more and more frequent in Canada with the trend of global warming.
Sanford added that British Columbia is in trouble when it comes to water conservation. "You probably have problems you don't know you have yet," he said. "Most of the water legislation you have is from the 19th century."
He discussed issues related to ground water legislation as well as infrastructure; for example, the need for Metro Vancouver to implement water meters.
Sanford cited recent policy reforms in the Northwest Territories toward water conservation legislation as a sign that although water conservation may be drastic in expense and planning, it's possible. "We don't have to go to bed wringing our hands and fearing the future. We can do this," he said.
Sanford will be taking his report on a 16-city tour across Canada and will be meeting with members of different levels of government along the way. After that, he hopes to take the report to Ottawa.
Grace Scott is completing a practicum at The Tyee.
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VivianLea Doubt
33 weeks ago
water ethics...
I think we should all be clear that there is a difference between water conservation, and water metering. Metering is an attempt to allocate a price to a resource that is the essence of the common good, and it is wrong. Wrong in the same way that the carbon tax is wrong, for those that can afford to pay can afford to waste or mis-use a precious resource. Wrong because the golf-courses will win out over the fish-bearing streams. Wrong, because the very poorest, living in those old buildings and many of them renting, will be paying disproportionately.
There are examples of communities, and several in Canada, that have approached conservation from the perspective of the 'common good', and they have been spectacularly successful in both getting their citizens onside, and in drastically reducing water consumption. Yes, we need to overhaul our patchwork of antiquated federal, provincial, and municipal legislation. Yes, we need to map our groundwater - a project that hasn't received much support from the current federal government, so the process languishes. Yes, many of the country's municipalities have already experienced drinking water supply problems, and conservation is absolutely required - but not metering.We must begin to manage our water supply from the perspective of what a particular watershed can support, and to develop community priorities around the allocation of water. Note: that is community priorities, not the priorities of the wealthiest or of industry or of any other single entity, but the community as a whole.
Frankly, the application of 'metering' to the problem of 'conservation' is laziness and unimaginativemess personified.
zalm
33 weeks ago
Perceptive, VLD
Well said.
Tod
33 weeks ago
EPCOR
EPCOR is an Edmonton based company with a strategic interest in water policy. EPCOR is in the business of operating private water and sewer systems, and is currently involved in a number of P3 and other private MUNICIPAL water delivery schemes in Canada and the U.S., including a number of them in B.C. Ethics indeed.
http://www.epcor.ca/