Water, water….isn’t everywhere…. (196/365)

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July 15, 2015 – While watching the news tonight there was yet another story on the dwindling water reserves, low river levels, high river water temperatures, and unusually high heat in many parts of the province. We have been restricted to watering lawns once per week, and a full lawn watering ban is probably coming soon.

We had a smidgen of rain this weekend, but it wasn’t close to being useful and as of today, the provincial government announced a Level 4 drought rating, the highest in their system.

“Further declines in stream, lake and aquifer levels could lead to water shortages and affect people, industry such as agriculture, wildlife, and fish stocks,” they said in a statement. “All water users are urged to maximize their water conservation efforts.”

The provincial government says that, at the moment, no rivers will be closed in the South Coast to fishing, but they are monitoring approximately 60 streams across the province. However, the situation is different in the Interior, where a Level 3 rating was put in place today for several areas; in those areas all streams and rivers will be closed to angling, along with all tributary streams. “The closure has been put in place to protect fish stocks at a time when they are vulnerable due to low flows and high water temperatures,” said the government, adding that lake fishing is not affected.

We aren’t in the same league as California at the moment, but for here…it’s very bad. I’ve lived here for 28 years now, and I’ve never seen anything like this. When we were out kayaking yesterday my friend said to me “I haven’t seen brown grass like this since the year I moved to Vancouver for University. That was the same year I moved here too. I recall that fall as being scorching. It was in the 30’s into late October and I remember thinking to myself “These Vancouverites sure are whiners about weather, what do they mean ‘it always rains in Vancouver‘?”

When November arrived it rained, and it didn’t stop until May or June.

I was schooled.

And I became a winter weather whiner.

But he was right, I have seen brownish lawns, but nothing like this. Great swaths of natural grasses are just crisp, waiting to go up in flame with the flick of a butt from some unthinking person.

Check out the province’s water index map.

That’s just upside down and backwards. The coast is always the wet zone, the Kootenays are always the dry zone. So this year the Kootenays are dry, and we here one the coast are extremely dry. And the centre of the province, which I keep expecting to go up in a ball of flame (and which may still) because of all the dead wood, is “normal”?

This is a strange year, and not in a good way.

In the meantime, we try to use water wisely and not waste it. We use an efficient irrigation system, when it’s needed, for the bulk of the garden, and we hand water the veggie garden, as required, to keep things growing and producing.