Water
A few years ago, a guy I worked with asked me, "why do we now call all these swamps wetlands?". At the time I answered, "must just be the way to get people to think about them differently, you know give them some value." The word swamp conjures up images of stinky stagnant water with a greenish tinge.
However, as I've since found out, swamps are just a type of wetland. Which kind of makes sense. There are actually a number of categories of wetlands out there, check these links if you are interested in learning more…
Wetlands on Natural Resources Canada
By the way, the five types of wetland are (from the Canadian guide):
The Centre for Watershed Protection has just updated their website. For many in the industry this has been one of the premier websites for watershed and urban hydrology information, and now it is even better. With a clean interface showing news, events and featured articles and resources this is an easy to navigate site.
My favourite “upgrade” is the news that all downloads are now free, with hardcopies of most documents available for purchase. Check out the resources section for all sorts of information from watersheds, erosion and sediment control to wetlands.
Summer is here again, and it’s getting hot!
The City has again implemented watering restrictions to ensure that the City’s supply of treated water is not depleted during the peak summer watering times.
Effective June 15 to September 15, 2008 sprinkling and car washing is permitted between the hours of:
5:00 A.M. TO 11:00 A.M. AND 5:00 P.M. TO 11:00 P.M.
Water Sprinkling is Restricted to Every Second Day :
- residents at "odd number" addresses water on "odd number" calendar days, and
- residents at "even number" addresses water on "even number" calendar days.
This is a generous amount of time even if you can only water in the morning or evening rather than both. If you have an automatic sprinkler system that cannot do odd/even of the month, you are permitted to water every second day. Find out more here.
How often do you water your lawn and gardens?
The City of Rossland is going ahead with a rebate program for the replacement of old toilets with newer, low flush models. This is in addition to the Province's (BC) recent announcement that all new houses will be fitted with low flush toilets. The final details of the program have not been ironed out, but it raises an interesting question that impacts everyone.
What standards of performance do toilet manufacturers have to meet? read more »
The Environment Minister for British Columbia, Barry Penner announced a water conservation program driven in part by the changing climate, but also by an acknowledgement that BC uses extreme quantities of water.
Under the plan, according to the Living Water Smart website, “by 2020, water use in British Columbia will be 33 per cent more efficient, and by 2012, government will require all large water users to measure and report their water use.”
Penner said the plan has the steps needed to protect B.C. rivers, lakes and watersheds....
B.C. environment minister announces plan for more effective water use
One big shift in this plan is a move towards Ecological Watershed Governance, something that has been rumbling around in environmental and scientific think tanks for a number of years.
But the thought without the requisite details doesn't cut it among many environmentalists...
"There's no details and the timeline says many of these things may be enacted by 2012. That's quite a ways down the road", said Craig Orr, executive director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.
"We need more details, we have severe water problems in B.C.", Orr said.
According to the government news release, in some areas, like the Okanagan and Gulf Islands, seasonal water shortages are already challenging community water systems, and the fish and aquatic ecosystems that depend on these systems for survival.
read more »
Patricia Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority stated the following, when criticized for allowing development to grow despite the fears of Lake Mead drying up and the impending water shortages...
"You're going to have water problems resulting from climate change whether you're in a water-scarce area or one that's going to get more water. It doesn't matter. The consequences of climate change - whether drought, flooding, or water contamination caused by rising ocean levels- will force us to adapt to a different way of managing water resources. There's no silver bullet. Are we accommodating people that come to southern Nevada? Yes. But they have to be accommodated somewhere."
And when asked whether she is "just an enabler for development", she responded...
We’re not enabling development: we’re protecting the community and the economy of the state of Nevada. That is what we are protecting. Economies grow; babies are born. California no longer grows from in-migration. It grows in and of itself now. Births exceed deaths. The no-growthers don’t have a solution for how you grow. How do you stop growth? And a relationship with developers has been critical because we’ve been able to get them to dramatically change how they build. A relationship with the gaming community has brought about huge reductions.
The Las Vegas strip gets flogged all the time. It uses only three percent of the water. People are coming to this country. We have a global population explosion. To simply push the problem off on someone else isn’t going to solve it. These people are going to use natural resources whether here or somewhere else. The issues will be different, but the complexities won’t be any less intricate.
This is such NIMBYism!
Amen to that.
Climate change is a reality, but so are the people who are migrating around the country and globe, for amenity, retirement, environmental reasons - Las Vegas is no saint when it comes to water consumption, but there are massive social problems that run deeper than water.
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