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Letter: ‘Virtue signalling’ on water in Squamish

I would like to express my frustration with our town’s water management strategy.
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'Looking through the rationale cited in our water conservation plan, I can find no specific reason why we need to restrict our water use,' says letter writer Luc Kazimirski.

I would like to express my frustration with our town’s water management strategy. I intuitively feel that summer water restrictions are unnecessary in a town surrounded by gigantic glaciers and subjected to eight months of virtually continuous rain every year.

Yet, we endure water restrictions every summer. How is this possible?

Seeking clarity, I found the town of I assumed I would find some justification for the restrictions. Unfortunately, no such evidence-based explanation is to be found. Our water supply comes from the Powerhouse Springs ground-water wells.

The existing wells have a capacity of 760 litres per second (L/s). We use, on our worst day, 188 L/s (2015 data). This is expected to increase to 299 L/s by 2031 with population growth.

Looking through the rationale cited in our water conservation plan, I can find no specific reason why we need to restrict our water use.

The Squamish document cites a provincial document for explanation: The Both of these documents take for granted that water conservation is a good and necessary goal. This may be true if you live in Los Angeles or Las Vegas, but those cities do not have our superabundant water resources. I believe our community’s water restrictions are basically virtue signalling by our elected officials.

They reflect a concerning lack of critical thinking rather than any environmental necessity.

Luc Kazimirski

Squamish


 

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