When Acting Locally and Thinking Globally Doesn't Work

Nobody gets the message across any better than Gyula Kiss:

"I remember my mother telling me to eat all the food on my plate because some people in the World are starving. I never understood the logic of such reasoning. How could cleaning up my plate help the starving millions?"

But he's not talking about world hunger in his latest blog installment.
He's talking about water supplies, specifically in the North Okanagan.

"Conserved water will not stay here:

 it goes down to the ocean

 (some of it through Lumby

 with undesirable consequences

 (flooding) at times)."

      G.Kiss, Coldstream councillor

Greater Vernon Water officials last week ... finally ... got around to posting the updated reservoir level, and we'll repeat it here (click to enlarge):

"The following information is important when viewing the above graph:

•                  Maximum reservoir capacity is 18,300 ML/y - in most years full capacity is achieved;

•                  Annual agricultural consumption is between 7,000-8,000 ML/y;

•                  System is designed for 17,000 ML annual consumption. 

Similarly, excessive saving of water when there is plenty of it in our reservoirs is not going to help other users who are not connected to our system.

 

Using reasonable amounts of water would keep our properties a little greener, reduce our per cubic meter rates (getting more water for the same price--maximizing, without exceeding, the "tier") and keep ratepayers happier.

 

Conserved water will not stay here: it goes down to the ocean (some of it through Lumby with undesirable consequences (flooding) at times). 

Obviously, when there is a shortage, conservation is important.

 

That is why Greater Vernon Water developed a Drought Management Plan to ensure conservation is enforced when it needs to be enforced."

 

 

GVW's tenet?  OBWB's tenet?

"So why doesn't bureaucracy simply go away when rules don't need to be enforced?" asks Kia rhetorically.


Remove the word 'simply', and I'm all for it...