Recently water meters came up at city council yet again.
In that discussion the ‘fact’ that water consumption in Grand Forks has actually decreased since 2007 was pointed out. I’ve heard this before and since.
Is it true? Yes it is.
Look at the list of consumption values. This list was contributed to the online discussion on Facebook by one of the people opposed to the water meters (thanks Donna).
2004: 2,534,092 m³
2005: 2,579,769 m³
2006: 3,512,464 m³
2007: 3,172,466 m³
2008: 1,780,184 m³
2009: 1,859,858 m³
2011: 1,966,208 m³
2012: 1,944,360 m³
2013: 1,749,186 m³
2014: 1,633,222 m³
Okay, Pop Quiz: What came to an end in 2007?
Well that’s the year the Pope and Talbot stopped and so did Canpar. One was resurrected but the other not.
Canpar made particle board and apparently used quite a bit of water in that process. Between them they employed a few hundred people.
That’s paycheques that families need. When those paycheques cease those families often move to where paycheques can be found and that means out of town. How many families left town when those two plants stopped? How much water did they consume?
Globally Canada is one of the biggest per capita users of water as a nation and this part of the country is right up there yet we encounter attitudes about endless water whenever actual actions like water restrictions and meters come up.
Well we don’t have endless water and we don’t have endless money either.
Demolishing a program like the residential water meter one is not cost effective. Most if not all was to be paid without borrowing or raising taxes using money we already had.
Pushing for opt-outs and other mechanisms to rip its guts out or blunt its effectiveness just puts the money and effort already spent in jeopardy of being more government waste.
Haranguing and hectoring council so they’re distracted and ineffective and the city is tied up in legal wrangling is wasting tax dollars that all of us who pay them contribute.
But not all who are in that fight have any ‘skin in the game’ – some who spearhead the fight do not even live in the city. If the ‘fight’ causes taxes to rise, and it will (of that there is no doubt), it is literally no cost to those safely snipe from outside city limits.
And when it was announced that the Snow Pack was only 1% of what it normally is and Stage 2 Watering Restrictions should be considered those who talk endless water complained loudly “You will my kill garden!”. I’m sure I could find some who would still argue that water is their ‘God given right’ and no one has the right to stop them using as much as they want whenever they want.
Thinking that way, acting that way – maybe that is why we are amongst the most water consuming people on the whole planet? Get over it! There are hundreds of wells in the valley and not all of them are inside the city bounds … over 500 actually(1). And the City Of Grand Forks does not control most of those.
The watering restrictions do not prevent you from hand watering your garden whenever you want. Using sprinkler systems on the other hand has restrictions.
Unless God says otherwise … or is that being too critical?
Does one person’s claim to a religious right to a finite resource trump society’s need to manage that resource wisely?
What about those who claim no ‘right’ to endless water but ask that the resource not be wasted? Are their ‘rights’ subservient to people with religion?
I’m being a bit facetious here positing a hypothetical but I use it so you can see how off track this can get … as it often seems to happen while having a discussion about water meters. Whether it’s rights, RF / EMF is cancer causing, alternative metering systems, minutiae of technical reports of studies or secret government programs to take control of our lives the discussion is steered into a detail or fear that might just possibly bring the whole thing to a halt.
It’s time to learn to live within our means and be proper stewards of a finite resource. OR get mired in controversy and drown in legal costs.
Les, I remember a professor of one of my university statistics courses stating that, statistics are like the ladies of the night; once you have them down you can do what ever you want with them.” It has consistently been the claim that on the average the people of Grand Forks use (waste) way too much water! If I remember correctly Council kept quoting that the average per capita consumption was somewhere between 700 to 800 m3. Averages are often misleading. For example, Town A has a population of two people. One lives to be one hundred years old and the other dies as an infant. The average longevity of the town’s people is fifty. If we compare this stat to the national average the conclusion is that people in Town A have a short life span.
There is no doubt that industry uses a great deal of water. If we can attribute the very significant reduction of water consumption to the closure of one industry then the per capita water consumption does not give us a true picture of how much water the average citizen is using. Using the 2014 stats the average per capita usage is approximately 408 m3. It is not a far stretch to attribute at least half again or more of the current consumption to the two major remaining industry and a handful of businesses in the community along with city boulevards and parks. What does that leave in terms of residential consumption?
You are absolutely right the community needs those high paying jobs that industry provides and, you bet, everyone deserves a living wage. A prudent council that wants to attract business and industry must have infrastructure in place to do so. Putting up signs, creating glossy brochures and installing water meters wasn’t what was needed. Fixing leaks, adding wells or a west end reservoir would have been the answer. You are also right that lots of money has been spent on meters. This money regardless of where it came from was still taxpayer money. And it is hard to turn the clock back on the metering program. However, please lay the blame for wasting money squarely on the shoulders of those responsible. Egos and a style of governance that denied a simple plebiscite led to the current situation. What we have now is a community mired in controversy, a dysfunctional Council, costly frivolous lawsuits, a costly dismissal and rehiring, money wasting FOI requests and Ombudsperson involvement and calls for further investigations. There is lots of blame to go around but it should be apportioned fairly.
Finally I don’t know anyone in his or her right mind who is requesting unlimited use of water. Regardless of how abundant or how renewable a resource is; care must be taken to avoid waste. However, people have a right to potable water whether it is God given or not. Try to live without it! We also have a right to the air we breathe, and the food we eat. Each of the primary needs of life is to a large extent dependent on live green, not dead brown, vegetation.