Don’t give ‘Twin Lakes Monster’ life
Ihad to reread this to believe it. The Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen is considering approving a developer’s push to build 208 houses on a severely waterstressed landscape near Twin Lakes.
Was this a reporting error, or were elected people, no doubt urged on by district staff, thinking this was a reasonable path to take? Even today, in the face of mounting world wide news and evidence that the planet –— yes, our “little old earth” — is suffering drastic droughts, water shortages, extreme heat, and all the ills now trickling down from human overpopulation, this bunch believed they could “grow their way” out of water related problems!
Local citizens are justifiably upset by this massive proposal; 208 homes all guzzling from a suspect water source, and in the driest landscape in Canada.
Annual per capita water consumption in the Okanagan is already 400 L/day, likely a serious underestimate since only 25 per cent of households run off meters, and Natural Resources Canada report (Water supply and demand, Okanagan water basin 2011 – 2040) predicts existing users will be consuming at least 8 per cent more water in response to rising temperatures over the next several decades.
“This development is the only way to solve the regions water problems in the long term”; astonishing! That’s what director Tom Siddon said about the Twin Lakes water shortage, a frightening problem facing virtually all parts of the Okanagan.
Is it really necessary to remind him the Okanagan is the driest landscape in southern Canada? Stats Canada reports we have the lowest per capita availability of fresh water in Canada!
And yes, we are officially a desert!
The “water supply and demand” report warns there will be significant depletion in snow pack in the Okanagan watershed basin due to climate disruption, run off will be gone mainly in May, and inflow to major lakes is predicted to decline by 50 per cent.
What seems to be escaping these plodding developers and their political enablers, is the capacity to realize their actions are cumulative — I’ll define that — adding to those poor or degrading decisions already made; the full brunt of their indiscretion and creeping and overconsumption will, enabled by terrible decisions like the Twin Lakes decision, be felt not only immediately but increasingly down the road.
Record temperatures have impacted B.C. for another year. Smoke is clogging the air. Fire-fighting budgets are on a run-a-way again. And Canada has just registered our earliest resource consumption “overshoot” day (a very early March 18) — the day we have consumed the nations biological productivity for the entire year — in recorded history; and we’ve got people making truly ignorant statements like “we can grow our way out of it.”
It may be that RDOS directors and managers are poorly informed or even, in some cases, completely ignorant. But, more likely they simply don’t have the backbone to connect the consequences of ecological limitations on human life — there isn’t enough water there, people — with their long-standing subservience to insatiable developers.
How naïve can people be? Of course, the developer will find a compliant hydrologist to sign off on the water “issue,” perhaps with superficial conditions, none of which, thanks to eager municipal “planners” and council, will be contractual obligations. But, what the heck, if there’s a problem, council and planners will just “grow their way out of it”, right?
It’s tragic that we are seeing yet another example of municipal government lacking the determination and vision to ward off a predictable environmental, economic and social threat. The RDOS board needs to nail the lid on this casket before this Twin Lakes Monster gets a life of it’s own.
Dr. Horejsi is a wildlife and forest ecologist. He writes about environmental affairs, public resource management and governance and their entrenched legal and social bias.