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No more B.C. water to be had, say they

By Meg Olson

After a meeting with Greater Vancouver Water District (GVWD) engineers, water district manager Dan Bourks is working on options that don’t include Canada to get more water for the Point.

“They can’t do it,” Bourks said. “They can’t export any more water.”
Bourks said the GVWD engineers didn’t see a capacity problem supplying the relatively modest water needs of the Point, but the British Columbia Water Protection Act sets a cap of 3182.2 cubic meters per day on the amount the utility can export to Point Roberts. That’s what the GVWD contract is supplying to the Point today. “They would do it but it’s illegal and they have to uphold that legislation,” Bourks said. “We can still formally request it and they would go to their board who could take it to the province but this might really take a while and you might not get anything,”

Bourks said there were more reasons the Point might want to look for other ways around the current water limitations that have led to a moratorium on new connections after the district reached the maximum allowed by the state with the current supply.

“The cost of that water is going up, up, up,” Bourks said. In 2005 the district will pay just under $300,000 in Canadian dollars for the annual wholesale cost of water. The GVWD is proposing more increases over the next five years that would bring the total annual cost to $464,000, and further cost increases are projected.

“We need to do a financial analysis and we may find that desalinization will be more cost-effective for ratepayers in the long-term,” Bourks said.
In the short term Bourks said district staff are working with hydrologists to determine the feasibility of supplementing the Point’s water supply with local wells. They will also be looking at boosting conservation efforts next summer.

“All of these options will be analyzed in the comprehensive plan over the next few months,” Bourks said.

Until the new version of the comprehensive plan is ready, the district is not issuing any new water connections except to people who had appointments with the county for plans approval scheduled for September. Commissioners voted in August to let these property owners squeeze through the moratorium because their projects appeared ready to get underway. At their September 8 meeting water commissioners approved correspondence to property owners who had swapped appointments to get in to see county planners in September and so qualify for a hookup.

“To be honest, I’m pissed,” said commissioner Art Wilkowski. “Our original premise was we would allow people who were out on a limb. If the county’s allowing people to trade dates with anyone in the county how do we determine what’s fair? This is flawed now because people made it flawed so we have no choice but to shut it down and if we get more hookups from the state we’ll have to go to a lottery until we get enough water to meet the needs of all lots.”