Snapshot of water resources turns out murky

Wide range of data is missing, including abandonment of reports on wastewater

When it comes to British Columbia’s streams, lakes, rivers and wetlands, we use policies and regulations to protect our treasured resources.

But our foundation has discovered that we can’t tell if those policies are working properly because much of the information we need is missing, inaccessible, out of date or inadequate.

Our water systems provide clean drinking water, food (via healthy fisheries), and they support livelihoods and local economies. Then there are the myriad mental, emotional, and physical benefits that accrue when we unplug and paddle out or swim into nature. That’s why, when asked in surveys to rank their most treasured natural resources, British Columbians consistently place freshwater ecosystems at the top of the list.

In short, when our home waters are healthy, we’re healthy.

Our philanthropic organization supports land-use and real-estate practices that contribute to resilient, vital communities and natural environments. We’re proud of the research, education, citizen-science programs and policy recommendations done by people who receive our grants. They’re advising on regulations for the province’s new Water Sustainability Act, forming governance organizations, using Indigenous knowledge to inform law and policy, and doing much more.

But while we’re seeing impressive results on these fronts, for too long the bigger picture has eluded us. How are the ecosystems at the centre of these freshwater efforts faring? Are things getting better in the backcountry, or worse?

To find out, we collaborated with our grant recipients and partners this past year to identify 10 freshwater impact measures. By compiling and analyzing data on these indicators, we’d hoped to paint a clear and current picture of the health of British Columbia’s streams, lakes, rivers, and wetlands.

Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out that way. When we cracked opened the books to take a look, we found so many pages missing that we had to regroup and change course. Instead of producing an accurate snapshot of the state of B.C.’s freshwater resources, we produced Murky Waters, a report that sounds the alarm on missing, inaccessible, out of date and inadequate freshwater data.

We were surprised to learn that the federal government once regularly tracked and reported on levels of wastewater treatment around the province, for example, but that Ottawa shuttered the program in 2009. We were taken aback to discover that hardly anyone has any idea about the state of water quality in British Columbia’s 20,000-plus lakes.

Fortunately, the province’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy has committed to report lake data annually starting in the coming year. (As for the wastewater survey, the feds should resurrect it, in collaboration with the province and local governments.)

In fact, governments should be keeping tabs on a wide range of freshwater indicators to watch for potential red flags. Reliable data, for example, could head off a potential algae bloom similar to those that have cropped up in the Great Lakes in recent years. These blooms, often the result of agricultural runoff, signal high levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients, and large ones choke off oxygen, killing fish.

To be clear, there’s no “smoking gun” behind the current near-vacuum of freshwater data in British Columbia; chalk it up to a wide range of unintended consequences, combined with plenty of simple oversights.

But now, especially as climatechange impacts loom large, we must get our data warehouse in order.

There’s no shortage of good ideas as to how. At the Second Annual B.C. Water Leaders & Funders Workshop held recently in Victoria, several freshwater leaders highlighted the opportunity to pool data from government, academic, community, industry and Indigenous sources, and make it available online via open-access data hubs.

We can choose to be proactive in our understanding of freshwater and the progress we are making — or not making — through the data we collect to inform decisions. Or we can continue on our current path and remain largely unaware of what the future might bring. When it comes to our province’s most treasured natural resource, we hope and expect our elected leaders will take the necessary actions.