I am very pleased that the government of BC is moving forward to modernize BC’s Water Act. The prosperity and health of our communities is dependent on quality and availability of water. It is good that the public is being given the opportunity to comment on the proposed Water Sustainability Act (WSA). However, the timeline is much too short to provide for the thoughtful consideration that the WSA deserves. I would urge you to extend and expand the public comment period.
My primary concerns are as follows:
Ground and surface water must be protected as a public trust, with ecosystem needs and public good placed above commercial interests. Consideration must be given to the level of water use that is sustainable and best serves the public interest.
With the projected impacts of climate change, including drought and groundwater shortages, the health of underground aquifers must be considered. Unsustainable water use must not be locked in by new regulations. As water expert Trevor Wicks of Trentec Innovations points out, “We have to define our watersheds and groundwater ‘recharge’ or catchment areas and protect them.”
It is imperative that BC move away from the controversial “First in Time, First in Right” (FITFER) system of allocation. FITFER limits the effectiveness of local planning and local stewardship of watersheds. Environmental flows, drinking water, agriculture or other publicly supported water uses must be given priority. The changes proposed in the WSA will enhance the rights of existing well users, locking in unsustainable water use without considering its best use.
Specifically on the pricing of water, my comments are as follows:
In a recent poll funded by the Real Estate Board and the Vancouver Foundation, 93% of British Columbians rate water as our most important resource. It is vital that the price charged by the government reflects its importance to the environment, the public, and industry. Pricing should promote conservation, as well as new practices and technologies that will enable more efficient use of this precious resource. The rates must be high enough to matter.
The current pricing for water is very low – pricing must signal that there is a cost to using water. This is a timely opportunity to ensure that water pricing reflects any pollution or degradation that occurs in its use. The renewable short-term approvals that are being given to the oil and gas industry are one area that must be examined much more closely. Pricing here must reflect what is happening to the water that is being used.
As Ben Parfitt of the Centre for Policy Alternatives has pointed out, “In a province where climate change is contributing to regional droughts and seasonal water shortages, we need to know who is using our water where, and that a high enough price is charged to encourage conservation. “
Water that is being removed from a watershed must also be priced at a higher rate. This water may not return for a significant time, imposing costs on future generations.
Of course, there will be increased costs to implement the new Act, with many more functions to regulate, including administration, conflict resolution, monitoring, determining environmental flow needs, enforcement, and sustainability plans. Our water pricing must generate funds to make sure the Act works to protect and sustain our water resources.
There must be transparent plans for timely reviews of water rates as our level of understanding increases. While there should be no exemptions given for the use of this most precious resource, impacts on low-income households must be considered.
And finally, the most important principle to be considered should be the importance of water for nature. If we do not protect and conserve our ecosystems, we will be left with nothing.

Demands #1 & 2 Recognize water as a human right and reaffirm water as a public trust that belongs to people and cannot be privately owned or controlled

The legislation does not recognize water as a human right or public trust. Furthermore, it still includes a First In Time First In Right section so that those with the older/oldest permit have rights over new permits. As a result, an older permit held by a gas or mining company can take priority over a new permit for domestic use, (which includes water for drinking, sanitation, preventing fires, etc), or conservation.

Though the new act also allocates 250 litres per household for “essential household use”, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 50 to100 litres of water should be allocated per person per day to meet the most basic needs and a few health concerns. The allocation of water in the legislation should be per person. A household of 5 people (especially if someone is ill) would be wholly inadequate to meet basic needs.

Demand #3: Recognize Indigenous title and jurisdiction to watersheds as well as secure free, prior and informed consent protocols within the Water Act alongside policies to monitor and sustain groundwater.

The New Water Sustainability Act fails to adequately recognize First Nations rights and title. Many water hungry and/or water polluting industries (such as fracking, pipelines, mining, and fish farms) are being proposed or currently operating on the territories of First Nations across the province. Despite these projects causing significant damage or posing threats to the streams, lakes, rivers, drinking water, and hunting and fishing activities on these territories, the vast majority of them still receive government approval, support, and water licenses. Moving forward, it is clear that any efforts to govern water must involve leadership from First Nations who have been stewards of fresh water in this province for thousands of years.

Demand #4: Create an approval process for groundwater withdrawals that includes public consultation, incorporates community input into the final decision, and respects a community’s right to say “no” to projects that abuse or pollute water

The New Water Sustainability Act will introduce a new pricing regime on groundwater users. The old water act left B.C. as the only province in Canada that didn’t regulate groundwater use. This allowed corporations and industries in B.C. to withdraw fresh water without paying the government for it, or measuring or reporting how much they take.

When it comes to incorporating community input, while the new act does require that the applicant give notice to those that will be affected by the licence/amendment (this includes an authorization holder, a change approval holder, an applicant for an authorization or change approval, a riparian owner, and a land owner), it does not require that notification be given to other people in the watershed. Wider notice should be given as certain projects could impact other people’s drinking water, for example.

The legislation definitely does not meet the requirement for respecting a community’s right to say “no” to projects that abuse or pollute water. In fact, it outlines the water licencees right to expropriate land which is “reasonably required for the construction, maintenance, improvement or operation of works authorized or necessarily required under the licence.” Furthermore, the act says that the ‘decision maker’ will decide when an hearing is warranted, which is insufficient as there should be situations that automatically trigger a public comment period/hearing process. In Ontario, any permit to take water is posted publically and open for comment for 60 days – ideally BC would have similar process. The act also fails to include a stipulation on incorporating community input as to whether a mitigation plan is adequate or not.

Demand #5: Include strict pollution controls, strong conservation regulations and stringent monitoring

According to Sheila Muxlow, Director of The Water Wealth Project, “We are pleased to see that B.C. will finally regulate the use of groundwater and recognize that sufficient environmental flows are essential to the well-being of communities throughout the province. However, this Act is still only a broad framework and the government has decided to defer many of the details to future regulations. It is critical that BC residents stay engaged in the process to ensure that the legislation has some teeth and isn’t another false dawn”.

Though in some ways the new act is moving in the right direction, there is significant concern that the government lacks the resources and internal capacity to implement and enforce its regulations and monitoring. For example, the new act mentions that the government could rely on industry information to “determine the environmental flow needs of the stream”. Seems like the fox watching the hen house! The government really should be doing their own assessments in the first place and not asking industry for this info as they have a vested interest in having the licence issued.

There are also some industries whose use of water are not compatible with the wellbeing of local communities and the health of the watersheds. In 2013, more than seven billion litres of water were used for fracking in B.C. If the government’s liquefied natural gas sector takes off, the water needed to get shale gas out of the ground in the northeast corner of the province will likely increase by 500 per cent, or more. When it comes to industries like fracking and LNG, one can’t help but be skeptical that this new water act will fail to result in any meaningful changes on the ground! Water used for fracking is currently sourced from both surface and groundwater. While the government is committing to regulating groundwater use and the act would require that environmental flows be considered by decision-makers before authorizing water use, is the government willing to put the breaks on runaway fracking development, undertake cumulative impact assessments, and limit water use to this industry in order to protect the environment, ensure clean drinking water for communities and respect First Nations rights and title? Will the government require fracking companies to disclose all the chemicals they are going to use for a fracking project in order to be issued a water license? (hint, the answer is likely no…)

Demand #6: Charge industry proper fees for their use of raw and municipal water takings

Many critics are concerned that the new legislation won’t charge enough to large scale water users (like Nestle or the fracking companies). There is concern that the government, in wanting to please big industrial users, will not charge the appropriate fees so that it can actually afford to enforce the law and protect our waters. It is absolutely essential that the government reform the pricing of industrial water use in B.C. to ensure that large corporations like Nestle, Encana, and Apache are no longer taking us for a ride and that water is being used sustainably.

In the Pricing BC’s Water document the government outlines certain principles such as simplicity, fairness and equity, etc. These are good but pricing alone should not be how water is allocated or managed. Water allocation must be based on the principles that water is a commons, public trust and human right.

Demand #7: Ensure a process to revoke permits where industries are polluting or abusing water.

The new act will allow the province to limit water use if a significant water shortage is declared. That means all users could face potential curtailment during periods of scarcity. Under the proposed law, critical environmental flows will have priority over licensed rights on streams and connected groundwater users, meaning that companies such as Nestlé (Nestlé Waters Canada will draw an estimated 300 million litres of groundwater for its bottling plant in Hope this year) could see the taps turned off in some circumstances.

However, the province has not clearly spelled out who and what gets precedence in a drought situation (or other situations of scarcity). And unfortunately that leaves too much up to the discretion of government regulators, who have shown on many an occasion that when it comes to competing water needs, Industry wins at the expense of the environment and local communities! Whether it is fracking companies who are able to withdraw large volumes of water from the Peace River while farmers fields go dry, or it is the provincial governments steadfast support for destructive projects such as the Site C Dam and Tsaseko’s New Prosperity Mine proposal (which would have destroyed Fish Lake as well as impacted the health of several major rivers), the BC government has prioritized corporate profit over the wellbeing of our watersheds time and time again. Furthermore, Nestlé Canada, in its submission last November, argued that its bottled-water production “should be considered an essential human-need function during times of drought.”

Instead of engaging a more precautionary approach to protecting our water that would have regulators looking at some of the root causes of water scarcity, pollution and abuse, the new act simply creates a more reactive approach where we have to be pushed into a time a crisis before we can trigger these laws to protect our water!

This act is an improvement over the one it is replacing but still has to address a lot of issues. There should be an approval process for ground water withdrawals that includes consultation with the public so that a project can be rejected by the public if the water is abused or polluted. In Ontario any permit to take water is posted for the public to read and is open to comment for 60 days. B.C. could have a similar process.

There also should be the capacity for the government to implement and enforce regulations and monitoring so that industry is not relied on for that as that can so easily lead to conflict of interest.

Large-scale users should be charged appropriately so that they are not draining too much water such as with the process of fracking where incredible amounts have already been taken to the disadvantage of others.

In the case of water shortages, priority should be given to those who need the water for basic needs and for farming.

Thanks.

It’s extremely important that our fresh water be treated with respect and not
be over-used by industry for simply profit. We must maintain the water cycle balance that nature intended or we will be in short supply for the things we really need it for; such as agriculture and everyday living requirements. I am very concerned that with the push for more LNG in BC that the fracking industry will be allowed to over use this irreplaceable resource; our fresh water, and replace it with a toxic form that we do not know what to do with. I oppose us putting this polluted ‘after product’ back underground where it can lead to other environmental issues. Let’s use our common sense. We can’t reproduce freshwater, but there ARE alternatives to natural gas… or other means of extracting it. Let’s be smart about how we use our water. Debra Nelson

Price the water high enough that it covers the cost to both administer the Act and cove the cost of the program to manage and protect the province’s water resources in a sustainable manner.

If a region or an area requires special water management, due to some known or potential issues (e.g., Saturna Island, Langley, etc.), it may require a surcharge, on top of the “normal rate”, to encourage sustainable behaviour. A tool like a “surcharge rate” could be managed at the local gov’t level – which could help offset their costs.