Coldstream Sends "Private Fire Hydrant" Issue Back to GVW

But with a request for information that should finally provide the transparency so sadly lacking at Greater Vernon Water.

A quick history that could aptly be called Round And Round We Go.
The "private" fire hydrant at Highlands Golf is taxed annually by the Regional District of North Okanagan.
The tax has ballooned from approximately $225 in 2001 to $470 in 2013.  In 2014 it's $560!
Nobody seems to recognize that even a "private" fire hydrant is part of a community's infrastructure.  Or at least until now.  More info at the "Saga" blog story of August 1st, 2014,  here.

So I sought to donate it.
First to Coldstream's fire hall--and then the municipality directly--an offer by me to donate my ~$13,000 (today's value) asset "private" fire hydrant.  All in an attempt to quell the annual tax gouging by GVW.  Was told that Coldstream doesn't own hydrants within its jurisdiction, so the recommendation was to donate it to Greater Vernon Water, which does (apparently) own North Okanagan's public hydrants.  Their engineer appeared to pull the wool over GVAC directors' eyes by first saying there were 17 private fire hydrant owners--then the same engineer a month later said it was 123, not 17.  Then back to Coldstream because, apparently, GVW does not "own" fire hydrants--they merely provide water to them.
Turns out communities pay GVW a nominal fee just over one hundred dollars annually for each fire hydrant.  That information took almost a year to be "discovered".

Ahem!  Oh, for heaven's sake!

Surprisingly--when looking up a bureaucracy image--GVW wasn't the first hit...

Happy to report--actually bloody ecstatic--that Coldstream Council at their July 28, 2014 meeting was unanimous in its decision to:  (unadopted minutes)

"Report from the Director of Engineering Services dated July 21, 2014,

Barb Mitchell appealed to Council to assist her with by either supporting the

donation of her private fire hydrant to the District or the

Greater Vernon Water Utility of having the annual hydrant fee reduced.

Ms. Mitchell further explained that she had attempted to have this issue resolved with the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee but

that they had indicated they would not accept her offer of donation.

Moved by Besso, seconded by Kiss, that the District's representatives on the

Greater Vernon Advisory Committee be directed to bring forward the Highlands Golf Course fire hydrant issue back to the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee and request that, in the interest of procedural fairness 

 (bold underscore blog author), Greater Vernon Water Utility (GVWU)

review the rates charged for private fire hydrants.

No. REG2014-205 CARRIED"

That then led to the following from the Regional District's Agenda for Greater Vernon Advisory Committee (directors) to peruse at their August 7th, 2014 meeting:

If this "flies" among Directors, there will finally be water rate transparency.

If it "dies", residents--who are concerned about huge increases to their water rates--can blame their area director for waffling under regional district bureaucrats' omnipotence.

Even if residents don't care about fire hydrant "rates".

"That it be recommended to the Board of Directors, staff be directed to

prepare a report to facilitate the discussion of future Greater Vernon Water

Utility rates.  The purpose of the report is to allow the politicians to discuss

the various potential sources of revenue, including taxation, to satisfy the future anticipated needs of the water utility.  The report should include detailed statistics on the present distribution of revenue (2013), including but not limited to: (a) number of connections of each type (breaking out Agricultural, Residential, Industrial, Commercial, Institutional, and other)

(b) present rates charged, and total income received, for each type of customer and service (including fire hydrants). (bold underscore blog author)

(c) detailed maps outlining and differentiating the areas that are and are not

presently serviced by the utility, but are geographically within

the Greater Vernon taxation area;

That the report be brought forward for discussion at either the September 4, 2014 OR earliest

possible Greater Vernon Advisory Committee meeting."

The Regional District brought this on themselves with their lack of transparency.

And gouging.

Have a look at this October 9, 2012 story which proves GVW has no idea--presumably because of a lack of software ability--what the breakdown in taxes among various users is.  Even how much each category uses! 

One word describes that:  outrageous!  

"Bureaucrats need to be accountable to politicians who serve their residents...it's about time in the North Okanagan," offers Kia.

It certainly is, Kia.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding

 what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb.

 ~Author unknown, commonly misattributed to Benjamin Franklin

$70 Million Referendum

"I don't know if the electorate is going to pass this one," Coldstream mayor Jim Garlick is quoted in today's Morning Star.

Subtle hint of how Garlick would like it to go?
Perhaps.

Voters should wake up and realize that no peer review has been conducted.
Or is likely to be, based on Greater Vernon Advisory Committee members' votes. 
Councillor Kiss' request for a peer review was recently denied by directors (April 9th story here).
And March 8th story here.

At issue is Interior Health Authority's demand that Duteau Creek (June 17th, 2013 story here) water treatment plant--which currently chlorinates water, almost all of which goes onto crops and fields--now also filter the water which goes onto crops and fields.

Anybody have a crystal ball?
Filter that water?
We don't even want to chlorinate it! 
But chlorinate it we do.

Where are the studies that show we should not irrigate with chlorinated water?

Where are the professors from universities, waving 200-page reports of the damage that will occur if we do?
Surely such studies exist.
Well, here's one:  Inactivation of Microbes by Chlorine.
It has news regarding disinfection, and that is a good thing.

But how about membrane damage?
Humans have membranes, so is that welcome news?
Certainly not.
 
Someone must be able to forecast over the long term the environmental damage to soil organisms and the water table from chlorinated water used for irrigation?
What does chlorinated water do to mycorrhizae?  
How about the long term damage to people's health, as they eat fruits and vegetables from their orchards and gardens irrigated with chlorinated water.

The only way that the Interior Health Authority's demand to filter water at Duteau Creek--and the fact that chlorination of that water has already been forced on residents--is to see November's water referendum fail.

Fail miserably.

"The referendum should be on diluting the IHA's powers," attests Kia.

Especially since they're not bringing a penny to the table.

Oh...and Kia won't even drink the chlorinated water ... until it has sat for several hours, dissolving its poison into the air.

Kiss Denied Water Plan Review

Councillor Kiss asked for a review of the $70 million Master Water Plan after he had been given "permission" to meet privately with water consultants.

Well, that's been quashed by a majority vote of the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee members.

The Morning Star reported Kiss' comment:  "We owe it to our customers to look at the master water plan again so what we're getting for our $70 million is what the community wants."

He's concerned that full separation of agricultural (from domestic) customers won't occur...a very expensive proposition. 

But the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee members seem to like the idea of putting chlorinated--and soon, filtered--water on crops and golf courses.

Mike Macnabb, a director, condones the current plan: "We have no idea of what future regulations will be.  It could be that water on orchards must be treated," he said.

Interesting proposition, folks.

I know of which I speak:  Many people will recall we had an orchard here for many years, ~1,100 apple trees that we planted, sold commercially to wholesalers via our own packinghouse, with the culled apples from the packing line going into our juiceplant, then into stainless steel refrigerated tanks for farmgate sales.

So it's with considerable cynicism I react to "future regulations for treated water on orchards".

To be very blunt, we could NEVER pick an apple up from the ground for our juicing operation.  Why?  Well, for those people with a strong stomach, here's why:  pickers and pruners routinely--I'll use two  indelicate words--shit and pissed--right where they were working.  No matter there was a port-a-potty fifty feet away.  Nope.  Didn't matter.

Yup.  shit and pissed. 
At pruning season late winter.
During picking season in September. 

But the Advisory Committee thinks it's a good idea to put chlorinated irrigation water on an orchard--and soon, filtered water--on that orchard, because it's safer.

Here's another story.
From a contractor who was hired to do some land levelling work with his bobcat in an orchard not too far from here.  The contractor recalled to me personally that he hadn't done more than a 50-foot swath of levelling when he noticed "a strange looking pile" ahead.  Worried it might include an irrigation hose bib, he got off the bobcat and walked forward.

He said he almost threw up when he had poked around with the toe of his boot.

There, barely an inch buried in the heap, were bones--animal bones (likely a goat or calf)--and flimsy paper blew in the wind.  After withdrawing his boot, he realized he was standing on a pile of human--yes human--excrement.  "The stench was overpowering; I gagged till I couldn't breath any more," he said.

He cleaned his boots in the grass as well as he could.
And drove down the driveway, never to return.
He did not reply to the landowner's phone calls that night.

Another fine orchard environment, where Advisory Committee Members are so concerned about health that they want to have the orchard irrigate with not only chlorinated water, but soon also filtered water.

"The orchard pickers and pruners can wipe with clean water when they're done," offers Kia.

How nice.
If they wipe at all.