More than $117 million in infrastructure funding will be unleashed to address water woes on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, the federal government announced on Thursday.
The shíshálh Nation will head up the project along with the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) to upgrade the region’s water treatment plant and construct two large storage reservoirs in the Chapman Creek watershed.
Drinking water in the region, which is on B.C.’s southern coast and includes the municipalities of Sechelt and Gibsons, is under threat from a constant string of summer droughts.
This isn’t the first time that there has been disputes over logging in the Chapman Creek Watershed. In response to complaints from the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD), in 2014 the ‘Managed Forest Council hired Madrone Environmental Services to ascertain the cause of “increased turbidity” in the water supply (which services up to 30,000 households). Geoscientist Gordon Butt pointed to logging after the “onset of the fall rains” and concluded, “Although there has been no clear contravention of the regulations, it is clear to me that industry standards for protecting water quality have not been met in CH1. The short-comings are substantially more serious given the fact that this logging has been carried out in a highly sensitive watershed supplying a large population.” [1] When AJB Investments resumed logging operations in late January of this year, Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) responded with a blockade. The latest attempt at negotiation has just broken down and the month long siege of Chapman Creek continues.
