3642 replies to this topic

[aastra]

I just wanted to say:

Is it just me or is the media going waaaay overboard on the whole water advisory thing? Good gravy, so you have to boil your water. This is such a massive inconvenience that people are brawling at Costco to get bottled water?? Unbelievable.

On CBC radio today, one of the hosts made this compassionate statement to everybody in Vancouver about how Canada is thinking about us and blah blah blah...I wanted to kick my radio. From what he was saying you'd think this recent rainstorm had been a nuclear holocaust or something.

Filter the water, boil it, let it cool. What's so complicated?

But aastra, it's the largest advisory in Canadian history!

Um, I don't have to boil the water for 2 million people, I have to boil the water for myself and my family. Big deal. See that big appliance in the kitchen there, the one with all the dials on it? Get acquainted with it.

Also, has anybody ever heard of being prepared? Maybe put a few bottles of water in the fridge or freezer BEFORE a problem occurs?

If and when a legitimate calamity ever strikes, methinks the pressure on emergency services and such will be well beyond the breaking point.

[Jada]

But the thing is, for us people on the north shore, it looks like we'll be boiling our water for weeks. And that's a major pain.

[Ben Smith]

Well, I think for one that Victoria's weather is becoming slightly more "extreme"

Last winters winds were nuts, leaving me myself powerless for about three days at a time. This last summer was also pretty hot for Victoria, with an average tempurate of around 28. For about four weeks of summer we were above or right on the mark at 30.

But my oh my, WHAT A SUMMER

[Baro]

The odd storm here and there is great fun. I love big rains around now, some streets turn into little lakes, and when I walk I always take a stick with me and go 'drain hunting'. You know when you score, there's a huge sucking sound and suddenly a vortex opens up and rather quickly down goes the water. Great fun. If everyone did this, we might have a little less trouble with the rains.

I do really wish we got more snow. Not some dusting or couple cm that lasts a few days. I want a few weeks of constant fluffy play-friendly snow. Not enough to cripple the city, but enough to have fun with and cause a little adventure.

[Holden West]

I can't find it now, but there's a google-maps based site where you enter the height of a rising sea level and it shows you how much waterfront property goes underwater.

[Scaper]

When my grandmother and great uncle and aunts were kids here in the 20's they told me that there was so much ice on the roads here in Victoria during the winters that they would put on skates and skate to school. They told me of how much colder the winters were here in the 20's and 30's.

[ressen]

Was it up hill both ways?

[ressen]

It seems to me this weather is now back to a more normal rainfall than what has been, for maybe the last eight to ten years.

[Amanday]

this reminds me of the new wwf global warming ads.

http://www.glossyinc...led/storms.html

[Scaper]

Was it up hill both ways?

ahahahaha......

Seriously though...My great uncle dave...actually drove his model T ford with a bunch of friends over Beaver Lake in the 20's.

And my great great uncles, and grandfathers who had farms here in Saanich said how in the winters here in Victoria in the late 1800's...they would milk the cows in the barn into these pales, by the time they had brought the pales back to the house...quite often they would be frozen over.

Even my father and mother who grew up here in Victoria...in the 50's said it snowed a lot more than it ever does now.

[Jada]

Well, all the ski mountains are open now, and much earlier than normal!

[Ms. B. Havin]

This letter to the editor was in the Nov.21 Times-Colonist, locked, but I thought I'd type the whole thing out and post it because it brought out such an interesting angle:

Logging in watershed creates contamination

The City of Vancouver's water supply has been contaminated by flooding and they have to boil their water and filter out the dirt if they want to drink it.

Their flooding is caused by logging, not by rain, but that is never mentioned by the corporate media.

When I was young (70 years ago) the forests around Vancouver absorbed the rain like a sponge and filtered it and the streams coming out of the forests flowed year around and were pure and clean.

Now the Vancouver Island cities north of here are having the same flooding causing trouble with the water supply. Still no mention of the fact that the watershed around every one of these reservoirs has been logged.

Victoria has managed to keep the loggers out of the area around our reservoir so our water is crystal clear.

Don Bentley,
Victoria

I thought of this letter because of an article in today's paper, [url=http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/capital_van_isl/story.html?id=0468b074-afbe-4f2d-919a-573fc8d9cacd&k=32331:df81a]Malahat subdivision faces fire risk[/url:df81a], which isn't about the water supply or logging in the first instance, but still makes me wonder how development is putting infrastructure and services at risk if it's not thought out properly. (I.e., if Don Bentley is right and the clear-cut logging around watersheds is to blame for contamination of the water supply, so that a bit of rain causes crises that weren't even an issue before, what else are we asking for with badly planned subdivisions?)

From that article (emphases added):

"I think we need to be extremely careful with that very beautiful and pristine area," Beckett said, pointing out that it borders on watershed properties and provincial park lands.

(..snip...)

The 224-hectare, large-lot Goldstream Heights subdivision being developed on Langford's border is accessed through the Cowichan Valley Regional District from Stubbings Road off South Shawnigan Lake Road. It is located in the Capital Regional District's unincorporated Juan de Fuca electoral area.

Each of the approximately 44 lots, which range in size from two hectares to 44 hectares, is to be serviced by well water. (Meaning they don't have to worry about things like municipal water supply?)

(...snip...)

Lund said that, through the zoning process, the developer agreed to dedicate Wrigglesworth Lake for park and provide a site for a future fire hall. Under current zoning the land could be subdivided into 30-acre lots, he said, adding there is no requirement for fire protection to be in place.

"If they want to subdivide, they can do that and they certainly have to declare to anybody who buys it that there's no viable fire protection there," Lund said.

He said the danger of wildfire from Goldstream Heights is minimal because the entire area has been clearcut and water has to be proved on a lot before a house can be built. (So, this just makes me wonder whether we've got zoning in silos here: for the fire guys, it's good because of the clear-cutting; for the municipalities it's good because these lots have to have well water on them, but at the same time the area borders on watersheds -- so why is it ok to clear-cut them? It's confusing -- these pieces should all connect, but they're being looked at as separate...)

[Ms. B. Havin]

I see that VHF just posted that Malahat subdivision article in the Western Communities thread,
http://www.vibrantvi... ... 1255#11255.

[Walter Moar]

Victoria has managed to keep the loggers out of the area around our reservoir so our water is crystal clear.

There's plenty of logging in/around the CRD Water Lands.

[Ms. B. Havin]

^ which is what the Malahat subdivision article suggests, as well. So how is our logging-around-watersheds situation different from Vancouver's & Parksville's (where contamination occured)? Anyone know, or is the letter writer off the mark?

[aastra]

Maybe Victoria didn't get the same rain/wind that the other areas got?

[aastra]

For the record, my water has run crystal clear this whole time, and yet I know people in my neighbourhood who had coffee coming out of their faucets.

[Walter Moar]

I don't know about Parksville and Vancouver, but there is a bunch of logging going on in the Sooke Hills and around Sooke and Goldstream Lakes in the Water Lands. I don't know about the drainage for the area and if it's actually in the literal watershed area; much (but not all) of it is outside of the Water Lands themselves. The logging is very visible from places like Empress Mountain, or if one (cough cough) gets lost and wanders into the Water Lands by accident.

I think they've tried to limit logging anywhere that drains into the water supply for Victoria, but the Sooke and Leech River watersheds are the ones with the most logging going on. Everything below Sooke Lake is pretty much gone.

[Ms. B. Havin]

^ thanks, Walter.

@ aastra: you're right, we did have less rain in Victoria, but I bet out in the Western Communities/ Sooke, etc., the rain was comparable to Vancouver (perhaps?) or Parksville (maybe?) (stats, anyone?). Anyway, rainfall out there was much heavier than in Victoria itself.

But since we are in a rain shadow and have some leeway in thinking/ planning around this, maybe it's all the more reason to pay attention to how we're logging around watersheds -- we don't have a problem this time or now, but if "extreme" weather becomes more normal -- who knows? New Orleans, after "extreme" Katrina, is kicking itself for draining all the wetlands and thinking that the levees would keep it dry...

Anyone remember that old margarine commercial from the 70s (?), whose punchline was "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature"?

[Ben Smith]

Well, I beleive we are getting more extreme on one end. Warmer, but not drier.

The summer was dry...and they will 100% stay that way

This winter, however...may be unlike no other. We usually get 'round 500 mm of rain (I think..) and we have already had a third of that...AND ITS NOT YET WINTER!!!

Pretty sad...

Just this weekend Nov 25-26, The high is supposed to be 0, with snowy periods!!