By 2025, the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) will need a water storage reservoir to stay within its Chapman system water licence conditions, according to its water demand analysis contractor.
Within the next two years, meeting the licence-required Chapman Creek environmental flow needs (EFN) during the drought months is anticipated to take up “the entire volume of the alpine [Chapman and Edwards] lakes plus an additional 1.4 million cubic metres (Mm3) that would need to come from a raw water reservoir,” consultant Paul Nash of Integrated Sustainability (IS) said at a July 6 special board meeting.
He reported that the 2018 version of the analysis predicted a 2025 shortfall of 1.64 Mm3. An analysis update now shows the 2025 estimated volume deficit at 3.51 Mm3. The deviation is due to climate change and the province’s Water Sustainability Act impacts on the SCRD’s water licence, Nash said.
Nash’s presentation detailed no options for meeting EFN requirements in the future without a reservoir to store creek water in the wet months for release in the dry ones. Treated groundwater cannot be used to supplement EFN needs, he said. While non-treated water from sources like Sechelt’s Water Resource Centre may be able to be used, he doubted that diverting water from a source such as Clowhom Lake would be allowed by the province.
In a post-meeting interview with Coast Reporter on July 11, SCRD chief administrative officer Dean McKinley agreed that a reservoir is one way to address the water supply deficit, but in his view, it is not the only answer. “There is no single magic bullet that is going to fix our water deficit,” he stated. He said that the benefits and costs of building a reservoir need to be considered alongside what other water supply enhancement initiatives, such as the savings created by improved leak detection and water consumption awareness that water meters for all customers on the system will bring in the coming year.
For him, the most important takeaway from Nash’s presentation related to the extension of the drought season used in the water supply calculations. The firm now projects 200 annual days of drought, extending from May 1 to Nov. 15, compared to a drought of 184 days used in the 2018 projections. Updated creek volume modelling shows near zero creek flows from July through November. In 2018, predictions showed creek levels “bottoming out” in late August and staying low to Oct. 1. Nash explained the changes were due to higher levels of evaporation and dry ground conditions throughout the watershed. IS’s analysis shows that extended and more severe warm dry weather means that less of the precious liquid makes it to the creek to recharge it.
McKinley stated that part of the update shows that “the impacts of climate change are coming faster than anticipated and they are clearly more serious than were forecast.”
Reactions from the board
“This changes the entire basis for us making decisions,” Area E Director Donna McMahon said in reaction to Nash’s presentation. She noted that in her last board term, she had held the view that reservoir projects were “too expensive” as future water supply alternatives, but that she now has new information that needs to be factored in.
A concern from Area F director Kate Louise Stamford was that as climate change impacts on moisture levels are being felt not only at the alpine lakes but throughout the region, that will complicate finding alternate water sources. She noted that might make a reservoir the only solution and stressed that thought should be put into mitigation of evaporation on any such storage site as well.
John Henderson, who attended the meeting as alternate director for Sechelt, stressed an urgent need for action. Calling the situation “daunting and dire” he suggested the board focus beyond 2025 and to the updated projection of a 5.6 Mm3 deficit as of 2050.
Reservoir and treatment plant grant applications a ‘go’
With the doubling of future water deficit projections fresh in their minds, the board unanimously supported the shíshálh Nation’s application for federal funding to construct two raw water reservoirs in partially mined out areas on its titled gravel lands. According to a press release from the Nation issued May 25, explorations have identified sites for water storage areas, with a combined capacity of 3 Mm3.
Also endorsed was an SCRD ask to the same grant program for money to provide treatment for that water at an upgraded Chapman Creek Treatment Plant. McKinley then outlined that staff of the two local governments would finalize requests for both projects at 100 per cent funding levels, as allowed for in the federal Disaster Mitigation Adaptation Fund (DMAF) for First Nation-partnered initiatives.
Exact grant request amounts were not divulged during presentations on those projects at the meeting, but in a staff report on the agenda, reference to $100 million for the reservoirs and $24.9 million for the treatment plant was made.
The DMAF has not funded a drought related project since its inception in 2018 and McKinley said that presented advantages and challenges for the local submissions. A complication he said was being anticipated with the Nation’s application is the time required by the federal government to make grant funding announcements, which “is never as fast as you would like.”
He explained that while applicants may be informed in confidence on grant decisions as early as this fall, spending of grant funds usually can’t happen until public announcements are made, often months later. The Nation has stated it is anxious to bring its project online potentially as early as 2024. If the application regarding the reservoirs is successful, explorations on whether it would be possible to start work before any formal grant announcement and where money for that could be accessed may be necessary. If the agreement of the granting agency can be secured, the Nation may have options to advance that work early, but being able to reach such a deal is not “a given.”
Project permitting and licensing for reservoirs are other unknowns for that application. In delivering the Nation’s presentation to the board, Jasmine Paul and Sean Maloney stated further study is being undertaken on those and other considerations needed to better understand the project and its implications. But given the urgency of the local water crisis, the DMAF application was cited as a cooperative effort to build what the presenters characterized as “a long-term solution” to water issues with the potential to provide “partial relief as soon as next year.” Their remarks concluded with a call for continued intergovernmental cooperation on the Coast as well as commitment to increase conservation in “a plan for the future” and to do so without delay.
As for the treatment plant project, which according to the schematic shown in the presentation includes a minor expansion of the facility’s footprint, staff said the project could be done in phases making the grant decision timeline less critical.
