Skewed Water Numbers?

Joel van der Molen has a point.
And he's tracked his family's usage.

"First of all, our reservoirs are full." 

Joel van der Molen

 

In a letter to the editor, he dismisses the doom and gloom of the Okanagan Basin Water Board's dire warnings regarding residents' water consumption.

Here's Joel's letter, published August 11, 2013, in the Morning Star:

"Recently The Morning Star published a story of a young woman encouraging citizens to stop watering their lawns.

"... Can someone from the Okanagan Basin Water Board explain how you come up with your numbers?"

One edition previous to that there was a letter to the editor expressing the idea of diverting water from the Shuswap.

These are two ideas on both ends of the spectrum in response to the idea that we have no water in the Okanagan.  An idea proudly spread by the Okanagan Basin Water Board, as seen in some of their water wise articles.

I would like to address two main concerns:

First of all our reservoirs are full.

We do have water, and most years our reservoirs overflow for weeks on end as they did this year (notice that we have not seen any graphs in the paper this year?)

Second, according to www.obwb.ca the average Okanagan resident is wasting water by using 675 litres per day per person. If that were true, our five-person household quarterly water bill would be $567.25.

They say that we increase our personal water use in the summer to 1,000 litres per day.  If that were true, I can expect a water bill for $830.50 after the next quarter.

In actual fact my household in the last quarter used 140 litres per day per person.

Can someone from the Okanagan Basin Water Board explain how you come up with your numbers?"
Joel van der Molen

"Easy...their calculator is missing its decimal point," muses Kia.  

The operative words are "...if that were true."
Good letter, Joel!

To view a 33-page report that includes raising the storage height of the Aberdeen reservoir, click here.