Jim Bodkin's Compelling Letter

Better late than never to reprint this February 8th, 2015 Letter to the Editor of the Morning Star; it's important to record it.  Many, many residents in Greater Vernon share Jim's opinion.


"Water woes leave resident steaming"

I believe the resounding defeat of the master water plan referendum shows that you cannot fool all the people all the time and underscores the need for politicians to take off their rose-coloured glasses.

The provision of an adequate amount of safe drinking water is absolutely essential and elected officials need to hold those senior members of the water utility who have just been showing part of the overall water picture to the public to account.

It is ridiculous how much emphasis has been put on getting drinking water from Duteau Creek whilst largely ignoring the fact that the vast majority of people in Coldstream and Vernon get their water from the Mission Hill waterworks that draws its water from Kal Lake.  Doing so distorts the water reality.

I suspect a lot of people currently getting their drinking water from Duteau Creek could be switched at reasonable expense to the Mission Creek water that comes from Kal Lake.  Problem is, from the perspective of those with vested interests, that would really show what a white elephant Duteau Creek is as a source of drinking water.

"...amazes me ... that our elected officials ever approved spending so much to make water from a nonsuitable source drinkable in the first place." 

Initially, we were told that we needed to spend millions on the Duteau Creek waterworks because the province would not give us enough water rights to take water from Kal or Okanagan Lakes to meet our needs.  That drum is no longer being beaten with much enthusiasm perhaps because it's(sic) credibility has been undermined by the fact that other communities bordering the lakes have water licences permitting them to draw what they need from the lakes.  It's hard to believe that the province would deny Vernon what it has granted to Kelowna, that is unless we fail to make a good case that we need the water licences.  The horrendous cost of turning Duteau Creek water into something drinkable makes a darn good case, does it not?

Another thing the senior people at the water utility have told us is that Interior Health has ordered us to filter our drinking water.  Quite frankly, that's pretty hard to swallow.  I think it far more likely that Interior Health has said that our drinking water needs to meet certain standards and left it up to our water gurus to figure out how to meet those standards.  I'm thinking too that Interior Health has few if any concerns about the bulk of our drinking water that comes from Kal Lake.  Duteau Creek water is another matter entirely.  Despite the millions of taxpayer dollars poured into making it drinkable, Duteau Creek water, especially at the time of spring runoff, has too many suspended particules that diminish the efficacy of chlorination or ultraviolet treatments.

"...fudging terms of reference can hamstring outside experts into being unable to recommend what they otherwise would do if not so fettered."

I'm no expert but I am a firm believer that you do not have to be a chef in order to criticize the cooking.  What amazes me is that our elected officials ever approved spending so much to make water from a nonsuitable source drinkable in the first place.

"Give the raspberry to any so-called experts who expound taking water from a source that is so initially unsuitable for making it drinkable that it will never be affordable."

Now, our elected officials need to go back to the drawing board and come up with a more economical plan.  They also need to do so with their eyes wide open.  It is common knowledge that fudging terms of reference can hamstring outside experts into being unable to recommend what they otherwise would do if not so fettered.

Over to you, our newly elected officials.  We need you to sort this out for us.  An adequate source of drinking water is a fundamental need, having it done at affordable cost is a fundamental need too.  Kindly roll up your sleeves and get on with the job.  Give the raspberry to any so-called experts who expound taking water from a source that is so initially unsuitable for making it drinkable that it will never be affordable.

It upsets me that letter(sic) such as this needed to be written.  For goodness sake you elected officials, do you not realize that your constituents rely on you to determine how many beans make five on a provision of a need so fundamental as enough safe drinking water?  Shame on your predecessors, shame too on those of you who held elected office whilst some of the profligate water decisions were made over the past several administrations."
                         Jim Bodkin


"Anybody still believe that the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee that 'oversees' GVW is in charge? Or is it the other way around?" muses Kia.

Especially since the only new member of the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee is Akbal Mund, Vernon's new mayor. 

As Jim Bodkin says, shame on you.

And whoever heard of WN news?
Seems GVW's turbidity report/switch to Duteau made that news:  http://article.wn.com/view/2015/02/21/Notice_to_Greater_Vernon_Water_Customers_Water_Remains_on_th/ 

Huh?  
The WorldNews (WN) Network, founded in 1995 & launched online in 1998. Now it has over 200 million pages indexed covering news on a vast range of subjects.
WN is completely free and offers a broad range of media content from a varied and extensive range of sources. A global leader in online news, WN Network presents news from more than 800 reputable sources including mainstream providers BBC, CNN, Reuters, Washington Post, etc to more regional and localized sources The Independent, The New York Times, delivering unparalleled coverage on a vast range of subjects.

"Obviously Kal Lake turbidity was 'submitted' to get top billing on WN news,"  mumbles Kia.
Sheesh!
Sheesh also to some of the public "uses" up at the Duteau sources.
 

OBWB photo.  Lots of things occur up in the "drinking water swamps."

 

 

Can Treated Wastewater Contribute to Desertification?

Yesterday's editorial from Richard Rolke of the Morning Star, entitled "Opportunities Expanding" dealt with allowing treated wastewater to be used on food crops, and that the B.C. Ministry of Health is slow to "get with the program".

We need to ask "is there a long-term cost to soil health, even if it's deemed safe for consumption?"

"The murder of the soil...actually took years."

Golf Digest.com/November 2013, H2O

My recent blog entry (on Greater Vernon's $70 million water referendum this Fall) contemplated only whether there could be long-term effects of using chlorinated water--soon to be also filtered if the referendum succeeds.  I basically mused whether soil bacteria and myccorhizae would suffer from the chlorine, and whether studies--one way or the other--were available.

Rolke's story detailed that California and Florida--on whom we Canadians rely for tomatoes in winter and citrus year-round--were already applying treated wastewater to food crops:  "...apples, grapes, asparagus, lettuce, peaches, peppers, pistachios, cauliflower, celery and a host of other fruits and vegetables". 

"The results of the five-year study have indicated that use of tertiary treated waste water for food crop irrigation is safe and acceptable," according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

And California has even surpassed state and federal standards, making the product safe to drink!

So, imagine my surprise when I happened on this phrase in a publication:  "For golf superintendents, though, reclaimed water is not problem-free.  Processed waste can be high in nitrogen and phosphates, which act like fertilizer, and superintendents have to manage the change, both on their turf and in their storage ponds."

The worst news was yet to come:  "Reclaimed water can also be high in salts, which can accumulate in the soil and can damage turf and trees (...poor health of the surrounding trees was a consequence of the high salt content of the golf club's irrigation water).

The next sentence was the clincher:  "The murder (of the soil), if that's what it was, actually took years."
(H2O, source GolfDigest.com/November 2013).

"Salt remediation--in which contaminated soil is treated almost like toxic waste--is expensive.  Salt-tolerant turf can actually make a golf club's long-term water-related challenges more dire, by concealing soil problems until affordable solutions are no longer possible."

So, let's forget golf courses.
Consider effluent applied to food crops, which is what writer Rolke suggests the B.C. Ministry of Health is slow to approve.

We've all seen the alkaline lakeshores of watercourses around the Kamloops area, where the whitish shores are evidence of the natural process when water evaporates, leaving salt behind.

As salt levels in soil increase, degradation of soils and vegetation occurs.

So, while I can't find research articles on the effects of applying chlorinated water to soil, there are indeed scholarly studies about the effects of using treated effluent:  here

Maybe the Okanagan shouldn't encourage Desertification!

"Seems chlorinated water isn't as big a deal compared to effluent after all," offers Kia.


...and then there's pharmaceuticals residue...