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.