SPEAKER_03 0:17

You're listening to Nonpartisan Hacks Pulse Edition, our locally focused series where we zoom in on how the big systems land right here on Vancouver Island. I'm Sean Wood, a counselor with the city of Parksville.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

And I'm Joel Grenz, also a Parksville City Counselor. Today we're talking about the one thing everybody in Oceanside has an opinion about by roughly the second week of July: water.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

If you live here, you know how this summer went. Level two conservation on May the 1st, level 3 on June the 1st, and then a full watering ban starting July 3rd. Brown lawns and a lot of people asking the same reasonable question. If we live in a rainforest, why are we being told to turn the sprinklers off?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

And the answer turns out to be more interesting than it didn't rain much. It involves a dam that almost nobody has actually seen, a provincial license that dictates how much water has to stay stay in the Englishman River for the fish, and a joint venture agreement three local governments signed back in the 90s.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Which is why we've got someone here who sits right in the middle of all of it. Our guest today is Scott Harrison, two-term counselor with the town of Qualicum Beach and chair of the Aerosmith Water Service. That's the joint venture between the town of Qualicum Beach, Parksville, and the Regional District of Nanaimo that owns and operates the Aerosmith Dam.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

And before we get going, the standard disclaimer the view here is our views here are our own. They don't represent the official position of the city of Parksville, the town of Qualicam Beach, the regional district of Nanaimo, the Aerosmith Service Park.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Scott, welcome to non-partisan hacks. That was very fast, Joel.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

I'll try to keep up with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

I'm trying to keep up with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:54

And I'll just say for the record, too, I have seen the dam.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah, actually. Yeah, yeah. We went to the dam together.

SPEAKER_04 2:00

When I was thinking about this conversation, one of the things I was thinking is that there's essentially two groups of people. One of them is much larger than the other, but the larger group is most normal folks, and especially in Parksville and the regional district who say development is causing a water shortage because they understandably correlate the growth in all the condos with the sudden annual reoccurrence of these pretty strict restrictions. And then you have some elected officials that say, no, the situation with water is fine. And we don't have to worry about it too much. We just have to make some long-term investments.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah, are you going to square that circle for us?

SPEAKER_04 2:32

The problem is that both of them are right, and both of them are not quite right. But it's just a little bit more complicated than that. And where I'd want to go is direct the conversation in the long run more towards the overriding issue, which is climate change. And this is the start of the impacts of climate change on our infrastructure. But I think maybe also give some folks the understanding of what the different components are of how did we get here in terms of the infrastructure. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Did you bring those components of how you get here? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:11

So um I I think you're right to hearken back to the 1990s when everyone got together and said, we're gonna create a dam to ensure the Englishman River has sufficient flow. And that was great.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

And Because at the time, the Englishman River was at there would be times a year where it wasn't flowing.

SPEAKER_04 3:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Right.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

Yeah, and and I think you know uh nostalgia sometimes gives us rose-colored lenses when we look back the past. There were issues with the water levels historically and and could get to the point where there's actually almost nothing, almost nothing left. Um so it was necessary for the fish, it was necessary for the habitat, and that's great. And around 2000 the dam was built and everything went online. Uh the issue, though, is that there were a lot of assumptions made based on, in good faith, on the information they had at the time. Um so one thing just off the top of my head would would be the volume of snow in the Manow Smith area in the snowpack. So how much water is in that snowpack? And what we did is we had, I think it was three different measuring stations. And you'd make a reasonable inference with this much area, with the gauges saying there's this much snow, we should have this much water, right? And that's all above board. There's no one trying to cut corners on that.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

And then this much snow equals this much water. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

And so everything is reasonable above board. And as only recently, we actually were able to use more modern technology, it was called LIDAR, uh, which is basically like radar, except you're using lasers to bounce lasers off the ground, and it'll tell you exactly how much snow is in the ground when you're flying over that area. And that was a grant done with the uh I think I can't remember which funding stream it was exactly. Trevor Burrus, Jr. People really want to know.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Uh which grant funding stream that was, Sean?

SPEAKER_04 4:54

How can you tell? I used to spend some time in academia. Was it a shirt grant or was it an indifferent funding stream? Uh but uh but to be fair, so it was a provincial grant, it just ran out.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

And that was a few years ago. Like that was that was recent. Yeah, it's in the last five weeks. Recently, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

So it was only five years ago we got the first measurements with this new technology. And it basically showed that there is somewhere between 25 percent less to 50 percent less, depending on where you are, snow than we expected, or water volume in the snow, I should say more precisely. And so the volume of water in the mountain is less than we expected. That's one thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Right. Uh second thing is just generally or or now because of climate change?

SPEAKER_04 5:32

Aaron Powell, I I think I would assume that it would be generally. Um I I would assume that the composition of the snow hasn't radically changed. But where I grew up, because I grew up in the north. I grew up in Prince George. Yeah, right. And there are different types of snow. Yes. Yes. So that's a definitely a thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Aaron Powell Snow is not just snow everywhere. Yeah. There are different kinds, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Yeah. So uh but uh I I don't have enough information to definitively say no, but I doubt that.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

You don't know the specific grant, and you don't know.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Why are you on here? Oh my god. I bribed Sean with coffee. Um but uh but sort of so that's one thing is that we have a little bit less snow in the mountain. Uh another thing, too, is the timing of because of global warming, the timing of when spring starts.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Right.

SPEAKER_04 6:19

And so if you look at the dates when the dam starts to overflow uh and the dam has a set capacity, after that, all the water just streams down into the river.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

It like spills over. It spills over. So certain times of year when we do get a fair bit of rain in our region. Uh and certain times a year the dam is spilling, and that's we get that in the reports that AWS puts out. Uh the dam is spilling. And that means that's water potentially that could be captured in the dam and stored for later, but it's actually spilling.

SPEAKER_04 6:48

But we just don't have the capacity for it. And uh I mean that's a very much an engineering question as uh how do you would you increase that? I'm not sure you actually could in that location.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Uh it's actually something the city of Parksville is looking at.

SPEAKER_04 6:59

I know, I I've read your studies. There's multiple uh multiple approaches. Yeah. Um but uh what's happening in the last few years is the date where you have that overflow is starting earlier and earlier. Um so this year where we had one of the earliest stage four, we also had the dam overflowing basically on February the first week of February, uh, which is the earliest ever uh in the history of the dam.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Trevor Burrus Because we had a average warm winter and less snow.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

There was also a lot of rain and a very warm spring. And so it just started all melting all at once. And so that meant that there was a lot of water flowing earlier in the year, which is great at that time of year, but you pay for it later on. Yeah. Um should have been snow, but it wasn't. Yeah, yeah. And so maybe 20 years ago, um, you do have you know about 1.5 degrees less of global warming. Uh you will have that later start of spring. Uh and the melt starts a little bit later. Um so that's another factor which is sort of more recent, and again, this is climate change derived. Um I think another thing too to maybe mention is that actually we should go there, stay with historical. The historical record, too. Uh, this is based on conversation I had with previous town staff to uh our presentation.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

So the town of Qualcomm Beach staff. Town of Qualcomm Beach staff is engineers.

SPEAKER_04 8:13

Engineer's name was Bob Weir. Expert. He was the keeper of knowledge for all things AWS because he worked for the town for well over 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:22

And previously worked for the city of Parksville before that, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Yeah, wealth of knowledge. He he definitely has all the history on all this in in our region.

SPEAKER_04 8:29

And if I'm getting the quote wrong, Bob, please don't hold it against me. But uh basically he said that when the province came up with the original operating rule, um there wasn't a solid scientific basis.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

So one thing I will give you Well, we need to dive into what the operating operating rule is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because maybe maybe we need to back up a step around the water restrictions piece. So we've got these conservation measures that that have kicked in this year, they kick in many years. Uh that restrict the amount of water you can use for outdoor water use, right? So you can't water your lawn, you can't maybe uh hose off your driveway, things like that. Um that is dictated by Ultimately it's the province.

SPEAKER_04 9:09

Okay. Um the province is basically to say um you have to go to this level of restriction, which is why Qualcomm is in Parksville. Yeah, yeah. So about Qualcomm Beach. So Qualcomm Beach, uh the province could do that to us if they wanted to. But they don't.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

But they don't.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Uh why do they in Parksville? So uh that's tied into the provisional operating rule, as you noted. Yeah. And this is all sort of loops into one conversation where initially there was a flow rate that wasn't really determined in terms of what the fish need, uh what is based on a sort of a scientific analysis of So for the provisional operating rule, the POR uh is i is speaks to the flow in the river, right? So the So it's the one originally it was one point six uh meters cubed per second, I believe, at the Englishman at the measuring point, and then it subsequently was given a temporary reprieve to one point zero, and only recently they've allowed it to go down to zero point eight. Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Um that is the the flow rate in the river during the the times on the operating of the dam. So uh you've got your cup of water. I I try to use this here. Yeah, no, I'm oh I'm I was gonna use it as a uh have a sip, go for it. I was gonna use it as a as a visual aid.

SPEAKER_04 10:17

Okay, by all means, sorry, I just had a little something in my throat.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, you've got your cup of water, yeah. And every winter the cup fills up and and even spills actually, water spills off the edge of it. Uh and then certain times of year, so uh uh is it June, I believe, June 1st to uh end of September, there is permission from the province to use the water in the cup. Because the province owns this water.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

Yeah. All water is ultimately provincial.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

All water is owned by the province. And so the province says you may fill this cup every winter, and then during the dry season, you may use the water in the cup, uh, but you can only use uh you can use some of it for drinking, but most of it has to actually be used by fish.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

Yeah, yeah. And that's that's the other thing too, is that I think people think that all the water behind the dam is used by consumption.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Right.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

And when you look at um, say the ERWS, which I don't sit on, so I'm just going off of the reports.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

I'm done at the Englishman River Water Water Service.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

Yeah. Um you look at how much water is actually being consumed by the service, um, when there's saying done.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

If there's no underlying natural flow, like say there the the river would be bone dry uh if we didn't have the dam uh helping us out, then the amount of consumption is about one tenth of um so depending on where this if it's one point zero, it's usually about 0.1 is that would be used by consumption of humans in City Parksville and also Nunus Bay area. And so that tiny fraction goes to the humans and then everything else is flowing down the river and creating an environment for fish and environmental needs.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

And I haven't seen in a staff report from uh City of Parksville staff where they actually break down the exact ratio for in an average year the dam will be X percent fish, X percent people. But I'd like to Ten percent seems to come up. I I'd ballpark it. I'd I'd probably ballpark it around like 75, 25. Okay. Um just because when there's half flow, then uh if half of it is natural flow and half of it is the dam, then there's a larger percentage which is being consumed.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Right. See, that's where it gets complicated because it's not just the water in the cup.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

But this is the water that is being stored and over the winter and is being released during the summer. Yeah. Uh but the summer generally there's also other water still flowing in the river, so it's not cup water.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

Yeah, it's not it's not a hundred percent dam, it's a mixture. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Um so but generally during that season, so just to nail down the provisional operating rule, during the the times when we are using the cup water, so the water and the dam, during those times, the flow rate determines what stage of water conservation measures have to be enacted. And this is dictated by the province, it's in legislation, and it says that if it goes below a certain threshold, now you need to go to the next stage. And if it goes below another threshold, you need to go to the next stage. Um, because it's it's reducing the amount of that cup water that is being used by the city of Parksville and in Spay, and uh leaving more of that cup water for the uh the fish habitat.

SPEAKER_04 13:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that that is true. It it it uh the ratio shifts over time, but and it's dictated by the flow, not by the use. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

So that I think the other thing that people just don't maybe get their head uh it's hard to get your head wrapped around is that the water conservation measures aren't based on how much water is being used, but it's based on how much water is flowing down the river.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Yeah. Yeah. And and because you have a dam that's uh essentially overflowing earlier um and you do have drier summers, uh the dam isn't quite built to purpose anymore.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 14:08

And that's more again, this is climate change driven. Um there's a non-zero impact of development, obviously. And that's that's a fair comment.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Right.

SPEAKER_04 14:15

But if you look at again the volume being consumed by the fish and the volume being sued by the people, um you consider there's probably I haven't seen an exact number, so I'm guessing somewhere between I I've seen numbers for the ERWS between fifteen and twenty thousand for the total number of users. Do you guys because I don't sit on that. Do you know the total number of users in this service?

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Total number of users.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Uh yeah, well, it'll be a combination of city of Parksville. It gets again, I guess, even more complicated because you have the city of Parksville plus you have Area E, Nanus.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Yeah, but not all of it.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

And not all of it. And uh the water during the dry seasons is also supplemented by well water and aquifer water during those during those times as well.

SPEAKER_04 14:57

So it gets really complicated. I think in the ERWS uh it reported mentioned about s one-sixth of the water comes from the aquifer in the noose. About 30 percent comes from the aquifer in Parksville, and the rest all comes from the dam. And it's like some I think it's around 60 percent comes from the dam. Um so overall. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

But then if you look in the in the dry season, it kind of reverses where where uh a significant proportion of the water comes from the wells and less comes from the river. But that that is the same time of year when there is a huge increase in water use. Yeah. So during the during the during the winter, the the water use is very, very low, and during the summer it's very, very high. Yeah. Because because people are watering their lawns and and it's not raining, and so people are using water outdoors, and that's where there's more water use. And uh and that that is really the big, if you look at graphs, there's like a big chunk difference between summer and winter. Yeah. It's almost like double. And also outdoor to indoor. Maybe even more than double. I have to double check the graphs.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

What are cities and towns in BC or across the country? What are we legislated to provide for water? Uh we're legislated to provide, and the taxpayers are paying for, indoor water use, health hygiene fire suppression is what they pay for. It's kind of what we're legislated to provide. Yeah. Are we legislated to provide infinite amounts of outdoor water? Um what is that what is that what the agreement is between people who are paying for their own.

SPEAKER_04 16:26

I I wouldn't I wouldn't suggest what the legislative requirements are, but I will speak to the way the town because I do know historically how the town has priced water. Uh and again, talking to Bob Weir, he told me that the peak water use for the town was actually in the 1990s and the late 80s and the early 90s is when we were using the most water in absolute volume, even though our population is now about 3,000 more. Treated, treated water. And uh the reason for that from our water service was that back then we had a maximum billable amount, and if you went over, it was free.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 16:58

So you could leave your sprinkler on when you got home from work at lunch, and granted, most of it just evaporates into the air on a hot summer day, but you know, uh you just do that because it's convenient.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

This is treated water that people are using on their grass.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

Yeah, this is potable drinking water that is normal water from our service.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Um and the tech at that time there'd be not kind of water timers as complex as they are now or irrigation systems.

SPEAKER_04 17:21

You got the little s circling round sprinklers and the water through the wave and and the wave too back and forth.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

And Sean has been working on actually that yeah, he's been working on holy articles. I was really excited to pull that over.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Can you do the horses walking?

SPEAKER_04 17:38

And uh but yeah, so that was actually um, we we nailed it. Wow. Uh a man of many talents.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Um I'm not that guy from Police Academy. He was super good at that.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

Uh meanwhile, I'm the guy for the micro machines commercial who speaks too fast. Um so it it is something where um per capita water usage is actually shifting over time.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Um so yeah, here's a stat I saw, and I I I saw it and I haven't verified it again, so hopefully I'm not incorrect on this. But my understanding is that Nanaimo has added 30,000 people to their population without actually increasing the overall water use. And that speaks to how much more efficient our fixtures are and and outdoor irrigation systems, all this all become more refined with leaks.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

The biggest factor though would probably be housing typology. And I'm not saying this as an advocate for one form or another of types of building, but uh the PWL study did show uh that say you have uh two-acre acreage where you have one acre of grass on your property and it's a retired couple with no kids. So for a two-person household with an acre of grass compared to an apartment, that you're not considering the landscaping in the building, but you're just looking at that one uh unit, um, it's a roughly 15 times ratio for water usage. Right. Um so as Nanaimo densifies, that per capita water usage will start to decline because you're not doing sort of rural acreages that are very water hungry.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Right. Um Yeah, I think people don't realize that it's it when you think about it, it makes sense, but it may be it's not the first thing you think of. But when most of the water that would be used by a typical single-family home would be outdoor water. Yeah. It's about a three-to-one ratio. But you're watering the lawn. Uh and especially if you're running a lawn sprinkler system for a couple hours a night. Well, imagine doing the same in your house, like I'm turning on the faucet and just leaving it on for like hours.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

But also one thing to consider is people's uh kind of how they grew up and so their background. And so all three of us probably had a single family detach as we grew up, but people who grew up in a city, they may have grown up in an apartment or a condo or a townhome. Um but here on the island, it used to be quite rural, and people who have been here for years and years and years, they're used to single family detached, and that's what people live in. Yeah, we do not live in condos or apartments, but um we've had a lot of immigration, and city of Parksville, town of Qualcomm Beach are not in charge of immigration, but we have had a lot of immigration in the country, and that pushes housing prices up. And when we have a limited amount of space for those single family detached, which all of us would probably prefer to live in, then that housing gets more dense. Yeah. And we can either not build dense housing here in the city of Parksville and kind of not do our part for the team, and that dense housing will have to be built somewhere else. But if everybody does a little bit, it's kind of a team effort for housing.

SPEAKER_04 20:39

Well, the real thing too is that um I think in terms of and now we're expanding more into housing more broadly, but I think it's a good conversation because it loops into water usage. Um, is that uh because there's a little point I'm gonna bring up later about um possible El Nino impacts and long-term climate change impacts. But um I do think one of the things we want to think about is teasing the El Nino conversation for later. I know. Stay tuned, folks. It's like there's like four people who are super jazzed about that. Um But uh uh I think we should be thinking about you know, what are our demographics, how are they changing, and what is the type of housing our citizens are gonna need in 10 to 15 years? Uh and the answer can't just be all single-family home ranchers that are one-story, three-bedroom, eighteen hundred to two thousand square foot ranchers, which is sort of the housing stock Qualcomm Beach built en masse in the 1980s, uh, because that's about half our housing stock was built in the 80s. So you have growth rates in the 80s of 35% in five years.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Um, and that's with without incorporating anything. That's just growth, baby. Uh so Qualcomm Beach in 76 was like 2100 people, and by uh 91, I think it was six thousand. And then it added Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

So what we're seeing now is like nothing compared to then.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

Yeah, so when people complain about growth rates in Parksell and Qualcomm Beach, like please look at the census data from the 80s and realize even at the peak of Parksil's growth. And in the last census, you guys grew just over 10%, and we grew by 4.6%. But uh man oh man, the 80s there was a lot of growth happening. Yeah. Um but what was being built back then, especially for our community, less so for Parksville, um, but more for qual Kambichi was uh retired couples' homes. Right. Right? Uh retiree housing. Uh and as a result, it's for young retirees. And there's a school of gerontology in Japan. I remember reading an economist article about how they divide seniors into two age groups. And the direct translation of the Japanese is young, old, and old, old, which is not exactly how people want to think of themselves.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Young, old and old, old.

SPEAKER_04 22:38

So yeah, that's an awkward translation.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Uh Department of Vernazie Department.

SPEAKER_04 22:44

So, you know, maybe there's a nicer way of phrasing it. But um essentially, obviously a 60-year-old is very different from an 85-year-old.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

Aaron Powell Early stage retirees and later stage retirees.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

And so what we're seeing in Oceanside post since 2001, for the Oceanside area as a whole, almost all the population growth, actually, all the population growth has been Citizen 60 or over. Um so the under-60 population has remained relatively constant. And every population gain we have are essentially seniors or semi-retetirees. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: One of the warmest places in Canada, but the real estate's cheaper than Victoria. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And the baby boom demographics lend itself to, you know, if you're a retirement Mecca, uh, do you like golf? Boy, do we have something for you?

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Welcome to Qualcomm Beach, where we own how many golf courses now? Two and counting. Yeah. Parksville doesn't own nearly enough golf courses yet.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

Are there lots for sale, Scott, in the in the latest one that you guys bought?

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Yeah, there's and available. Um we could have a long discussion about all things in Google Crest, but I would like to.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah, we won't digress to that. The other thing, too, I think, to bring into this is around expectations, which Sean brought up is when people come over from other parts of the country uh or even other parts of the province to retire here or move here, the expectations around uh the climate that they've moved into may not be the same as what they came from. So I moved here from Ladner, and uh pretty much any time of year, I could stick my finger in the ground in the front yard and hit water, right? Like it's so wet because you're you're in a delta there. Uh you come here and during we live in a rain shadow here in in Parksville, and during the summer, there's not a lot of rain falling from the sky, and the soil and the ground conditions are such that it really drains very quickly. So to try to keep a w a lawn green is takes a lot more water here than it would in Ladner, and or you know, I've if you've moved here from Ontario, like Sean or or Manitoba, where it's very green a lot of the year, maybe the whole year it's green. Maybe you don't need to do much to water your lawn during at all to keep it green. Here you're gonna have to use a lot of water to do that. Uh I I there was recently a photo posted on Facebook of uh it looked like an aerial photo of Parksville in the 60s, and it actually looked very brown. Look at did you see that photo? Summertime. Summertime. Yeah, so it looked very brown and actually looked like there are fewer trees generally in the Parksville area, like that sort of it kind of looked over the community park and a bunch of area, looked like there are fewer trees, much browner uh grass, and and uh so it it seems to me like, yeah, well, do we live in a rainforest in Parksville exactly?

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Is it it's quite dry during the rainforest is a very different uh ecosystem than single family homes with grass.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Right.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

Yeah, too to your point. Uh yeah. Well, it it's also too um, you know, what happens to a lot of rainforest when you clear it out? It dries out. Uh the land dries out quite quickly.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:48

Um and grass doesn't grow as quick as you'd like it to. Um it's part of the reason why deforestation can lead to desertification. Right. Um but that's a whole other conversation too. Um and I don't want to forget about El Nino for the four people.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Okay, I mean we we did we did tease this.

SPEAKER_04 26:02

Okay, so I should probably talk about this too. So this year we're headed for what's probably the largest El Nino event in recorded history.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Super El Nino.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

A super El Nino. Yeah. Um and for folks who don't know, I had to look this up. I I vaguely remember my kit as a child watching Sarion Live, Chris Farley in a uh topless, of course, as Chris Farley always was um with a hula skirt saying I'm El Nino, which is Spanish for the Nino. Uh but what El Nino actually was, so it was uh a bunch of fishermen uh off the coast of Chile and Peru uh several decades ago, and they noticed right around Christmas time that the fish they'd normally be catching had migrated significantly, and that's because of a warming event. Um and so is why did it cause? Well, because of El Nino Jesus, because of sweet baby Jesus. Um and that's where the term comes from.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

And uh but isn't there also La Niña?

SPEAKER_04 26:51

And La Niña is the opposite of that. Okay. And what El Nino is is a warming basically along the equator off the Pacific, and it has significant impacts on weather. So the state of California can get deluges um and very strong storms. It impacts uh the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic. There are fewer hurricanes when you have a very strong El Nino. And then I was doing research last night at those ungodly hours of like one in the morning, and uh the economists and the weather network both have projections for this winter of the El Nino event if it goes through as is expected, which right now it's on track to, of a high pressure event all winter long.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Wow.

unknown 27:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:28

And then uh I looked at another source called climatedata.ca and it says, no, no, and it's gonna be very, very wet all winter long. Um a high pressure event will probably cause a significant reduction in precipitation. Um so I'm not in a position to say what weather we are gonna get.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

But because the economists are we had you on to predict what the weather is going to be the next year. We have like a map here. Can we get like a green screen? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:51

Um it's also too like what it like what do Canadians love to talk about? Uh the weather uh ad nauseum. Um but if I'm assuming the weather network and the economist uh are pretty reputable with their sources, um their science is pretty accurate. So if we have a prolonged high pressure event in the wintertime and we have less precipitation, that'll mean they'll have less snow in the snowbank.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Blue sky.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

Um and then potentially as well with global warming, you're also going to have that early melt and the early overflow, even with that like we saw this year with uh because I know Sean, you're very uh attentive to this, the low snowpack, and then also too, on top of that, it's melting sooner because things are warmer.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 28:27

So there's a precautionary principle, I think, too, like when we're talking about development too, more broadly. Um we can't grow endlessly in this area. Um we're gonna have to invest because of climate change. But if we are gonna be considering development, it should be a sort of an intentional thing of what do the citizens of our communities need and what is the impact sort of like per household on tree loss, water consumption. Um how does this line up with the provision of services like public transportation and other things? Our amenities and walking distance. Um so if you have a grocery store, that's a great place to put density. Um if you're in a suburban neighborhood, I would argue again, this is starting to touch on local politics in Qualican Beach, but I'd argue that's not a great place for density. Um because uh if you have a lot of services in proximity to density, you can walk to everything. And that means you don't have to use a car.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

But not just that, it it s saves the the local government money too, because all those pipes that are required to pipe water and take the water away in pipes, yeah, uh and uh all the road infrastructure, lighting, sidewalks, all that stuff costs more money to exactly. So if you have more of the density concentrated in certain areas, then you can save money for the whole community.

SPEAKER_04 29:42

And I think I think to the point, maybe for some of the folks who are opposed to development in certain parks, so I think there's a bit of a a swing. Um good conversation is where do we contain it? Um so whatever that boundary is, and I'm not saying what right or wrong, I'm not in a position to say that for several reasons. But I do think that like on the one hand, I think people underestimate the benefits of density and how that impacts their taxation. Um so for example, the East Village in Qualicam Beach, some people object to us as aesthetics. Aesthetically, I can understand the conversation that you don't like it very much, but it also reduces your taxes by 3% every year in perpetuity. So, you know, there's a give and take because you have more value in the building, um, you do get more property taxes, which again keeps down the cost of tax increases. And for both our communities, a lot of folks are on fixed incomes and they can defer, but for some reason, a lot of folks they're you know, baby boomers were.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

You know, the three percent property tax, I guess, reduction-ish on future property tax increases. Do larger cities see that? Because we see everyone, every city, every municipality, their property taxes go up, even if you're Burnaby or somewhere with huge towers. So, you know, uh I'm gonna kind of have my NIMBY glasses on right now. No, that's fair. We need to you know it's a good uh is that a thing? Because we should steal man it for housing, housing needs. Uh I've asked Blaine, our planner. I'm like, well, whose needs? Because with my NIMBY glasses on, uh, I have no needs for more housing and more traffic and more stress on my healthcare system here in the city of Parksville. I have none. Uh workforce businesses would like some more affordable housing for frontline workers who can't afford the average $950,000 single family detached. But what housing needs do we have that are already here? We already live here and we love where we live. We we have no more housing needs, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

I I would caution folks to look at the number of the percentage of renters who spend more than 30% of your pretext income on. Sure. It's expensive. Um if you're building market housing. Oh, yeah, no, but if you look at the share of the population, now you compare Qualcomm Beach is worse than Parksville, um, by a little. We're 53.3, I think, in the last census. Now, 53.3 is worse than Vancouver. It's worse than Victoria, it's worse than New York City, it's worse than San Francisco. Um you're talking about percent of income spent on rent. Sure. So the percentage of renters are spending too much in Qualicum Beach is the third worst in BC of any community. So there's about 200 municipalities. So we're in that top one and a half.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

If we live in Hawaii, the Hawaii of Canada, can we build our way out of that and see those rents come down?

SPEAKER_04 32:45

Not likely. Um I I think you can stabilize the market though. Well, but this is this is getting really far afield, but it's a good conversation. Um but I I I do think that the folks who say just build, build, build, and it'll become affordable. No, but it you'll stave off uh escalation. The other thing too, I know Joel and I were speaking before the podcast is what is the future population growth in our area? And um when you look through the buyer surveys for the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board, so they used to publish they used to have an archive of it on their website, which is great, uh, because they've been doing it for about 15 years. And for folks who fill in the survey, so it's self-selected, so caveat about the data source, but it's about a fifth or so or a quarter of folks who buy homes in our area. And every year you see the same pattern that it's overwhelmingly folks from Vancouver and Victoria. It's about 75% of folks who buy homes here for the first time. And then you have a few folks from out of province and much fewer folks from other countries.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Um again, that's Parksville, Qualcomm Beach.

SPEAKER_04 33:50

Yeah, this is Parksville Qualicam Beach. So uh it's called Area 5 on that study on the Vireb reports, uh, which correlates to Parksville, Qualicam Beach, the oceanside area. Right. Um and the interesting thing Joel and I were talking about is well what happens because we've seen the baby boom, and we're in we're a perfect community for a lot of 60-year-old retirees or semi-retired folks, uh folks who can work remotely for you know 20 hours a week and uh play some golf and uh go drive around. Uh but the the age at which people are coming here, that sort of fifty-five to sixty five range, is now going to start being the Gen X, which is a huge population uh uh valley in terms of demographics.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

I turned fifty five on Christmas Eve.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

Yeah, well Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

See, that's what I get that's what I've had my whole life is my birthday. I get Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

This time you get a senior's discount.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

At Fields in Parksville, 10%. Fields, I think, is gone. I know, so not that one. No more discount. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

Oh geez.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

We interrupted Scott. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

Oh no, that's okay. But it's to the point is um, you know, folks who are sort of our age, we're middle-aged. Midway point in life lost in a darkened wood. Um sorry, that's the opening line of Dante's divine comedy for folks. Uh but um He's a literature student, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Yeah, a millennial student.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

Uh so I had to throw that in. Uh but uh uh we're all sort of middle-aged guys who are on a podcast. On a podcast, very much for like the cliche. And uh we're all elder, like elder millennial to young gen X is sort of our niche.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Right.

SPEAKER_04 35:22

Um and there aren't as many of us.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

There are there are quite a few millennials. Yeah. Uh not as many Gen Xers and not as many in our demographic. And not only I'm where you're getting here is not only are there uh is there there's not as many of that generation that may move here, yeah. Uh, but I'll add to that is I wonder whether the future generations will follow previous generations in their migration patterns generally. Uh are people of uh the coming generations going to move to Parksville from other places when they retire, or are they just gonna stay in the communities that they were in before?

SPEAKER_04 35:57

Um Yeah, well one thing I'd say to sort of uh uh precisely echo that is that a lot of the population, just stability of our country, let alone growth, has come from immigration from overseas.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 36:08

And uh I lived in Korea for a year uh teaching English. Uh I would say we don't have a lot of folks from who are first generation Canadians coming from Asia moving to Parksville or Qualican Beach right now. That might change the future, I don't know. But right now it's not sort of the standard. And the standard is that you move in with your kids. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

So the most cultures would have yeah, would have multiple generational households. Yeah. Uh and so that could change. So that's another factor. So I think you're going in the direction of the Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

So it's also too, it's not only do we have reduced population growth because of Gen Xers just being a smaller demographic.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

But also, too, as the composition becomes increasingly first generation Canadians, that will also have potentially a reduced demand because folks aren't looking to move into a retirement community, they're looking to move in with their kids, yeah, maybe somewhere in this suburbs of a city. Um, so and this is all hypothetical, like it's a bit arm waving, we don't have solid data. There was actually a uh healthcare summit last year in November in Nanaimo, and the keynote was a demographer uh from UBC, and I specifically asked him about the long-term implications of uh large number of folks coming from Asia and BC. And that's sort of like you know, increasingly the population in Vancouver. There's a huge uh well, there's several languages in Vancouver, but huge percentage of the population do not speak English as their first language. Um how does that impact the mid-island demography in the future? And he just basically said that's an excellent question. And uh don't know.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

By the way, sidebar, is it his study that was used by the province to create the housing needs report?

SPEAKER_04 37:45

No, no, no, that's a different guy.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Okay, because there was a UBC study that was used to project forward the housing needs, which then the city of Parksville and town of Qualcomm Beach had to use to create their housing needs reports, which is what's being used to also.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

Yeah, so that prof was uh the UBC prof there is Tom Davidson who's involved with the province for setting that up. Right. Um and he's a Harvard-trained line economist specialist. Um and also Little Spatzelhall was involved, and one other gentleman who I'm familiar with from like Blue Sky Twitter. Uh I'm no longer on Twitter now because you know, the owner. But uh yeah, there's there were a few different data scientists, but they're different folks. Um but I would say too, like folks are really interested in housing policy. Uh uh Tom Davidoff is a good follow.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

Right.

SPEAKER_04 38:29

Um he's he's very knowledgeable on the subject. Whether or not I agree with all his positions, it's still uh good to engage with someone who's very well versed in the subject. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

And the reason we're talking about housing needs and demographics is we're looking down the road in the future, and that all water is obviously a pretty good resource that has to do with those housing needs and the demographics and managing growth, which we do at our local government.

SPEAKER_04 38:50

Yeah, yeah. I I would suggest this this does sort of loop it all into the end. But it the idea is that what type of homes are you building? How many of them are you gonna build? And then that can help you project how much water you need to provide. And then especially for the ERWS, so this is more part less qualicum beach, because we have sort of our own system now, but um long term, who knows? Uh if we overbuild, there could be impacts on the aquifer. Uh but uh it does sort of suggest how much uh water storage do you need to invest in? Uh how much uh do you have to invest in terms of those water processing plant as well? Um I know the PWL report, if you have a high growth scenario, uh Parksville would have to expand their water treatment plant by 20 in the 2040s.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Which it's built to be expanded.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah, so the treatment plant in Parksville is built to be able to double its current capacity. Uh last I checked, we are behind where it was projected at the time that we we would be in terms of the water use. And so we are actually, which is great if we're kind of a little bit slower to need that second doubling of capacity. Uh and that's just the processing of the water. That's not the storage of the water and all that. But just that's the same thing. That's a great point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:07

Uh it's a great point that we have to separate the storage and the processing because those are two different sort of lenses and two different pieces of infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Yeah. And that also is another thing that gets that gets confusing.

SPEAKER_04 40:18

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Yeah, and I think that the to kind of now circle this all back is we have these watering restrictions that happen every year, and they are dictated by the flow in the river. We have a dam, we have a uh we have uh an aquifer well pump system as well. And those are the two kind of main ways we get water in the city of Parksville and the the uh Nanus uh area E. Uh and and the good news is I think that um you know Murray uh Walters, who's the RDN's engineer on this, uh he he, in his opinion, uh this is a meeting like last week that Sean was in uh on the RDN and I was tuning in like I usually do. And he said that uh we have a robust and resilient water system in the city of Parksville and the news. Um but City of Parksville has done a bunch of work on this file. And maybe I'll toss it to Sean if you wanted to go into any of that, the KDL study that that Scott's alluded to and where all that's headed.

SPEAKER_03 41:20

I mean, this the study is online for everyone to to look at. Uh one thing that really sticks out that our CAO said to me um is that the systems that we're talking about is for delivering treated drinking water to homes for domestic use. This is what we built. Um we do not have a system that can deliver if everyone is running their sprinklers during the summer where it is very dry. We do not have a system that can actually deliver that amount of simultaneous water to everyone's property if everyone is running a sprinkler in their single family detachment.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

We never have, really, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:56

We do not have that system. The just the diameter of the pipes to deliver that water uh doesn't exist. And I also, you know, since it's treated water, uh pretend it's like gold coming out of the tap that has been perfected for human consumption that you are spreading on your hedges or your grass or you know, veggie gardens. Can you keep that stuff alive? Lawns notwithstanding in the summertime, yes, with restrictions, you can keep your mature gardens and your veggie gardens alive. Um but it is not a system to deliver uh green lawns for everyone all summer. And that is part of I think what kind of needs to be understood with what we have with a robust system for delivering health, hygiene, and fire suppression. We have lots for fire suppression and for health and hygiene for domestic water use inside your home with the treated water that is like gold coming out of your tap. Um there are rebates for cisterns, there are rebates for uh water storage, so you can capture some of the water that comes down all year. You're sitting on a property right now that's about 0.42 of an acre in the RDN area G, and I have uh 500 gallons over there, and those are 50 gallon times three. I kind of have 650 gallons of capture, rainwater capture equipment here on this property. Untreated. Untreated, and the grass or my hedges, or whatever it is that we use it for, uh hens, they don't care. It's great water that comes out of the sky. Uh, but that is something that I think people have grown up with being able to use infinite amounts of outdoor water use, and that is not the system that has been built, and it is not fair to have everyone pay for such a system where there's infinite amounts of outdoor water use. Um, and so I think that's really key to this entire issue.

SPEAKER_04 43:57

And then just remembering one thing I forgot to add. As uh something that folks if the data source is public and folks might not always want access, is there is provincial observation wells that monitor the groundwater level in multiple locations all through oceanside. Uh there's uh probably about two dozen uh that are set up. And last night I again middle of the night I was uh printing out copies of the actual water level in Parksville. You brought visual aids. I brought visual aids. I know I'm trying to be organized, and then I just got distracted. Um but uh the all the graphs show there's basically three wells, two wells in Parksville proper, and one is close to the corner of Church Road and the Alberny Highway. Um and the one that's uh in Springwood Park uh shows that uh when you put in the ERWS around 2019, basically it went from about 10 meters underground for where the water is to about six meters. And so you went up by four meters, and going up is good because it means you have more water.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Right.

SPEAKER_04 45:00

Right?

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Uh so the the the take home is that when the city put in the water treatment plant and the um ERWS system, that there's less reliance on the well water of the aquifer, and the aquifer has been recovering. And there's a huge rebound.

SPEAKER_04 45:16

Um and so and then there's one at Trill Drive. Um it's basically level the last few years, and it's a huge rebound again. Um this case it's only about a meter and a half. Uh and the last one, the Alberni Church. Scott brought graphs. I brought graphs. We can maybe put these in after.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Um hold them up to the camera. And we can describe them for the video audio portion.

SPEAKER_04 45:37

We can provide links uh to people to the same graphs.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

And we might be able to do better than that on the on the video. We'll see.

SPEAKER_04 45:42

Uh but there's also two, the last one for parcel is the Church Albernie Drive, uh and the uh Alberny Highway rather, and that is sort of declining right now in the last couple of years, but it is still significantly higher than the historical low points, which is around 2010. Um so you know, the it's not saying that we should be blasé about water, but I think sometimes uh folks get uh caught up in seeing this early stage four and thinking there's no water in the ground.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 46:07

And there actually is more water in the ground than there was five years ago. Um it's not to say that we should abuse that, but it is to say that it's it's not a crisis in terms of the aquifer right now for the city of Parksville. And city of Qual town of Qualcommich is basically the same thing, it's basically level. Um and historical records show it was in the past we actually had a lower water level in the ground, um largely because we were more wasteful, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Yeah, I think it s uh important context too is that technology is improving, uh things are getting better in terms of our ability to measure all this, things are getting better in terms of our ability to manage the resource and use uh, you know, new studies are coming out, science is progressing. Uh so things are uh are improving and but we do need to be careful and and it's important that um the city of Parksville, town of Qualcomm Beach, the regional district, that we continue doing good governance of these very valuable resources and that we have um uh that we're careful stewards of of everything that you know, water, energy, all these things that we should be careful with.

SPEAKER_04 47:15

And I would say too, as someone who's elected for the town of Qualcomm Beach historically, um I interact on the AWS with City of Parksville staff. And uh I have found them to be incredibly professional. Uh they m know exactly what they're doing, they're very thoughtful too. I remember having a long conversation about the first time they really introduced serious water restrictions during an election, I think it was eight years ago now, um, and how much they had debated, like, okay, well, the water level requires it, but do we want to do this or not?

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Um Yeah, one little anecdote on that was uh was because the watering restrictions are dictated by the province and the flow in the river, we did have a situation where in September the province required the city to go to stage four watering restrictions. Yeah. And it was literally raining at the time. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, that was that was awkward. I remember talking about it. People are confused. Like, why are we having these watering restrictions when it's raining? And uh, well, the answer is it's the flow rate in the river and it's a pretty binary decision that the province makes on that or dictates.

SPEAKER_04 48:19

Yeah. Um but but it is something too, and and just for me, that's sort of the final point is that, you know, um, and I'm not trying to say that we need to develop everything or we need to have whatever limitless amount of business, and I'm certainly very skeptical about the idea of data centers in their area. But um I I do think that if you had imagine a scenario where the city of Parksville a decade ago said, and Ninous Bay as well, said we're gonna do an absolute moratorium on all growth, and nothing was built ten years ago, would you have water restrictions? And for me, unqualified answer is yes.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

Right.

SPEAKER_04 48:50

But the question is only maybe two weeks later.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Well, we how many water restrictions are there right now on uh how much water you use it on your you when you have a shower or a tub or brush your teeth or cook with. Still zero.

SPEAKER_04 49:04

For uh still zero. Still zero. For us, though, our restrictions are just like please don't water your lawns in the day, thanks.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

In Qualkazeech.

SPEAKER_04 49:13

Yeah, in Qualcomm Beach, because we just have stage one.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

So beach is definitely a different scenario. And I think that's also something that maybe people in Parksville would look at Qualcomm Beach and like, wow, they've look at these green lawns.

SPEAKER_04 49:23

Yeah. And and it's it's hard because um and I I know I did an imperfect job today. And for folks who maybe don't come away with this with a clear idea of what I was trying to get at, I apologize if that's you know, that's my shortcoming.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

But um I do feel that it is a complex issue in your defense there, Scott.

SPEAKER_04 49:39

But I do feel that there's a bit of an informational void that's um, you know, I I think I'm not trying to critique anyone in Parksville in particular, but I think there's a lot of information that needs to be absorbed to understand why we are where we are. And when we don't provide information as local governments, folks will make reasonable inferences based on the information they have.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

There's always room to improve communications. And Scott, for yourself, uh never let uh perfection be the enemy of good for whatever you brought to the podcast today. Um, all of that being said today, uh I had uh I was gonna go up to Mount Kane, which we go up to kind of every year, and the weekend we had booked up there, it was closed in February at Mount Kane, which typically has great snow. And so that's when I really uh started to pay attention to snowpack, and this is the worst snowpack year we've ever had. I'd like to see us plan ahead for a zero snowpack year, which I think all of us around the table think that's good planning. Uh Shelton and Healy Lakes would provide more upland water storage, is kind of what I lean towards. Um and so uh we're paying attention to it. It's a complicated issue. Communications can definitely be improved. Yeah. Scott, thank you so much for being on the show today with us. We appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 50:48

Thank you very much, gentlemen. I really appreciate being here. It's great to be surrounded by uh some very intelligent men who uh work hard for their communications. Look his way when you say intelligence, not me.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

Well, yeah, if if you want to go deeper uh with on these issues, the Aerosmith Water Service and Englishman Water River Water Service uh both report publicly through the City of Parksville website. So people should know that's parksville.ca. Uh and also the RDN has their website with some Team Water Smart uh program information as well for folks that are interested in learning more about these topics.

SPEAKER_03 51:24

And communication can always be improved. I'm not reading the script right now, Joel, uh, but part of what we do here on the podcast is to improve that communication. We're gonna try to get Murray uh from the RDN on the podcast as well. Yep. Um, and so that is part of what we do here at the podcast. Scott, thank you so much for being on the show. Appreciate you making some time for us. I appreciate you, gentlemen, very much. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Until next time, take care of yourself and your community.