We often receive letters from citizens who are concerned about protecting water sources. These folks volunteer hundreds of hours to ensure drinking water is protected for future generations.

Here is one we received from Vancouver Island filmmaker, Paul Manly addressed to Nanaimo City Council, Vancouver Island, BC.

Dear Mayor and Council

Further to my presentation to council on Monday June 17th I would like to draw your attention to an update on the situation in the Shawnigan Lake watershed provided by  CVRD Director Bruce Fraser on his blog http://www.fraserforshawnigan.ca/      I have copied the text below my signature. 

I would also like to provide you with two video links. The first is a short video about the situation in Shawnigan lake 

The second link is to my film Troubled Water which has a chapter on the Nanaimo watershed (as well as Victoria, Shawnigan, Cassidy, Parksville etc.)    

The situation in Shawnigan watershed has parallels to the situation with our own community watershed and should be viewed as a cautionary tale for what could happen here. The key thing I would like to bring to your attention are those elements which the city of Nanaimo has no control over, namely the industrial activities that fall under the jurisdiction of the provincial government, forestry and mining.

The Nanaimo Watershed

I have been taken on a number of tours of the Nanaimo watershed with Jim Sears from Weyerhaeuser (2004), Morgan Kennah from Island Timberlands (2011), Wayne Hanson from the City of Nanaimo (2004) and Bill Sims from the City of Nanaimo (2011). Each time I have been given a similar message and reassurance,"the city and the forest companies work well together and there is no need to worry about the effect on the community water supply from industrial logging". I believe these people are good people and have the best interests of Nanaimo residents at heart but I am not reassured by their words. 

To begin with, we have no written agreements between the city and the forest companies that even guarantee the city access to these private lands. The 1998 Auditor General of BC's study called “Protecting Drinking Water Sources” highlights the problems that fertilizer use in a watershed can create and recommends against it. Nanaimo was a case study in the report but there was no mention of fertilizer use in the Nanaimo watershed in the report. Weyerhaeuse had a fertilizer program in the watershed from the late 1990's through the early 2000's  but never informed the city or the province about the program. It was revealed by a whistleblower. I honestly believe that Jim Sears thought that the fertilizer program was benign but I also know that it is not likely that he felt the need to research the source of that fertilizer. It turned out that the fertilizer sourced from Woodburn industries (a company that has since gone bankrupt - related to contaminated fertilizer law suits) included material scrapped from steel mill smokestacks. This 'recycled carbon' was laced with extremely toxic heavy metals, dioxins and furons. The city and the provincial government had not been informed about the fertilizer program, let alone the toxic nature of the fertilizer. I have heard people from the Nanaimo water department play down the fertilizer issue and I agree that since it has been stopped the risk has diminished. The watershed is huge and the contamination level is not enough to stop me from drinking tap water . The point is that the city has no control, the forest companies did not inform the city and this could happen again… or worse we could have a Shawnigan situation. 

The Shawnigan Situation

I have been familiar with the South Shawnigan area for several decades and have witnessed the changes to the landscape. I had friends who lived in the stone house on Stebbings Rd. which is several hundred meters from the SIA quarry site and the proposed contaminated soil dump. The majority of the land was originally owned by a single land-owner who understood environmental stewardship and logged the area in a sustainable and sensitive way. That land-owner sold the land which was then completely clearcut and sub-divided into smaller parcels. The clear cutting was followed by a number of mining operations including for limestone, granite and gravel. The Cowichan Valley Regional District had no say over these industrial activities in the watershed and now that the permit for the reclamation of the granite quarry is being adapted to include toxic contaminated soil they have no say over this as well. It's a provincial matter. (Watch the Shawnigan video or Troubled Water, which also has a Shawnigan chapter to see what this area looks like from the air.)

The quarry is 15 meters from Shawnigan creek, the main tributary to Shawnigan lake, the water source for 8,000 people. The 100,000 tons of contaminated soil that will be dumped at this site each year for the next 50 years will come from a variety of sources including old gas stations and the dredging of Rock Bay to clean up a historic coal gasification plant and a hydro transformer site. The contaminated waste will include carcinogenic hydrocarbons and persistent organic pollutants that are known to cause serious health problems. If the proposed plastic liner in the quarry leaks or if a 100 year storm event floods the area then Shawnigan lake could become a toxic cesspool with water too contaminated for human consumption. I have talked to people at the ministry of the environment who confirmed that drinking water is not tested for hydro carbons like benzene etc. and filtering does not remove all of these contaminants. Will the citizens of Shawnigan lake ever know if toxic leeching has occurred?

What is happening in Shawnigan could happen in the Jump Creek and South Forks watershed and the City of Nanaimo and Regional district would have very little say in the matter. The watershed is all private land, could be resold and re-purposed any time and the provincial government has jurisdiction over forestry and mining , including mining reclamation.  The city has no control over resource extraction in the watershed.  

What needs to happen.

The City of Nanaimo needs to deal with this watershed issue and should be developing a regional water strategy to purchase the important parts of the watershed as well pushing the provincial government to adopt as policy the  Ladysmith City Council resolution (passed by the Union of British Columbia Municipalities)  that the provincial government develop a funding program that facilitates local government acquisition of both the watershed and adjacent land for those local governments with water systems on privately owned land; and that all activities in watersheds used for drinking water be subject to final approval and control by affected local governments and the Ministry of Environment (MOE). 

Any changes to provincial legislation like this needs to be done ASAP because as soon as the Harper Conservative government signs and ratifies any of the three 'corporate rights' (or so called free trade) agreements CETA, FIPA or the TPP (the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with the EU, the Foreign Investment Protection Agreement with China and the Trans Pacific Partnership with the USA and other Pacific Rim countries) then the investor state provisions will allow foreign corporation to sue the Canadians Government for any policy changes at any governance level that affect corporate profitability - that includes protecting community drinking watersheds from industrial activity.

The issue of water security and private ownership of the community drinking watershed needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. The situation may be 'acceptable' to the city in the present state but once the watershed land is sold again the current situation could unravel at a rapid pace and the citizens of Nanaimo could be in the same situation that the citizens of Shawnigan lake are in… fundraising for a legal fund to defend our drinking water from the threat of contamination, writing letters, feeling hopeless...

If any of you would like to speak to me further about the research I have done on this subject please feel free to contact me at any time. You should also consider having a conversation with Bruce Fraser from the CVRD.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely

Paul Manly

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.