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Province charging for wells is a bad joke

Tell me the story about charging farmers for using their wells is an early April Fool’s joke.

Tell me the story about charging farmers for using their wells is an early April Fool’s joke.

If not, this is ludicrous to the extreme. This government is acting in an absurd manner. Promote B.C. products then charge those that produce them. Is this a way of funding their ads? Minister Polak is a joke. She allows a contaminated soil dump at Shawnigan Lake and yet she states “that water is our most precious resource”. Whose water?

The farmers and First Nations in the Peace would agree if not for Site C. Shawnigan has been fighting the government to protect theirs and yet the focus is on farmers and their wells, which they paid for.

Farmlands capture water through rain and snow which feeds the aquifers and any watering of crops returns to the ground.

Will they be able to charge the government for this? Calculate how much is returned and use the same figures that the government is using. This should balance out.

Of course, Mayor Lefebure has to get his two cents in about climate change (it’s an excuse for everything).

Yet his jurisdiction is drawing from wells and, eventually, all that is used is flushed into the ocean while not feeding the aquifer.

He is also allowing more major subdivisions to be built. Is he planning to introduce water saving measures to ensure some flow back into the aquifer?

Will his departments set standards for water capture, natural landscaping, no lawns, etc.? I think he sees more tax dollars more than anything else.

To my mind, it is the cities and towns that should be paying for water conservation because they contribute nothing to the aquifers they are drawing from. Also any water bottling company and the fracking industry should bear the largest burden but they won’t because they probably contribute to this government whenever they have their fundraisers.

In the next election, we have to vote this excuse for a government out, in spite of the new electioneering handouts that are coming our way.

 

Ed Aiken

Cobble Hill