Step Up, Interior Health

Put on your big boots and barge into the bureaucratic tangle.
The way you've barged into the paying public's lives with your demand for water filtration.

There are so many bureaucratic agencies and ministries involved on the Aberdeen Plateau...the area where the majority of Greater Vernon's water originates...that one would be hard pressed to think that yet another division of government is actually lacking.

But it is.

The Regional District of North Okanagan has, for many years, been aware of conflicting uses at the watershed.  Not only aware, but working at considerable annual expense to replace or repair vandalized signage and gatehouses,  communication infrastructure, fences, reservoir slopes and power supply, etc. etc. from the apparently rampant misuse by members of the public.    See May, 2015 entries here and here.

But it isn't until one reads the current agenda submission for GVAC that the urgency of misuse by the public on the area's drinking water becomes readily apparent.  The Grizzly Reservoir Management (page 2 of 43 here) Strategy--not even the entire system of Duteau reservoirs on the Aberdeen Plateau--is discussed in considerable detail. 
The Regional District calls it "recreational pressure", beginning on page 9 of 43.
Sheesh.
Taxpayers call it by its most accurate description:  "Threats to our Water Supply".

One can easily imagine the exponential impact of the public's misuse on the rest of the plateau's water storage systems.

Where are bureaucrats from Interior Health?  Not present, except one mention that they might be involved some time!
Yet the expansive list includes Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources; Recreation Officers;
Recreation and Trails B.C.; Senior Dam Operators; Conservation Officers; Forestry and Range tenure holders identified in the Land and Resource Management Plan.  
All those bureaucrats.


Greater Vernon Water states it has "taken the lead in planning to protect water quality and water supply infrastructure in the Duteau Creek watershed, the water utility doesn't have the capacity to undertake long term planning assessments of the area's carrying capacity for recreational activities and camping on the Aberdeen Platea." 

Bull feathers.
Come on folks.

Whether the solution is to apply for a Lease (on Crown Land), or encourage another bureaucratic agency to set up Recreational Sites, it doesn't matter.
What does matter is urgency.

Especially when the water supply of ~50,000 residents can be seriously affected.  Any day.

The Duteau Creek Water Assessment plan has identified that recreational use in the watershed will continue to increase.  Camping, fishing, boating and off-road vehicles are of considerable concern.
There's discussion about electric motors on Haddo Lake.  (An aerial view of the lakes is provided within those Agenda pages).

Of prime interest to customers of Greater Vernon Water is "Disposal of Human Waste" (begins on page 14 of 43 at the Agenda link provided above.)  

Disposal of human waste?
Huh?
Where our water supply originates?
Yup.

So what's the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Recreation Office doing?
They're writing pamphlets!

And camping in reservoir areas?
It "should be restricted to designated areas that limit contamination of reservoirs".
Yeah.
Should be, but it hasn't been done in all these years.
But GVWater has "designed and placed signs".
Huh?
Signs?

And apparently GVW is going to "investigate 'vulnerability mapping' of high and medium sensitivity zones".
Sheesh.
Investigate?
Map?

How about doing something about public misuse.
Today.
This week.
This month.

Take Interior Health up there.
They can impose their health and safety regulations first to our Government in Victoria, then to Greater Vernon Water.  Order a fast-track solution to water safety.

Do it.



"Maybe GVW is waiting for another Walkerton before moving on this,"  muses Kia.

Hope not.
Stakeholders my foot!

It's time to designate Priority Use on the entire Aberdeen Plateau.
After all, what's more important than the safety of residents' drinking water?