Paula Johanson

The idea and practice of sharing and repairing seems to capture peoples’ imagination, as these tales of community goodwill from the past year of   ZWS Repair Cafes and Swaps illustrate.

Two separate pairs of spontaneous volunteer fixers were tourists who each decided that driving from Victoria to Sooke to make repairs at our event was a terrific end to their holidays on the Island.

At the Yarn Swap, a community member brought her yarn winder, confidently occupied a corner of a table, and began winding balls of yarn for anyone who asked. Three huge boxes of yarn were donated to our Yarn Swap by widowers, each from their late wife’s stash. One of the three widowers brought his huge box to Sooke’s Yarn Store by mistake and Robin the owner thanked him kindly, then closed her store for half an hour to bring the huge box to us at the library. Two random persons spontaneously began sorting skeins from each huge box as it arrived: “Acrylic! Textured! Wool! Cotton!” into waiting hands. The emptied boxes were re-filled with yarn sorted for three local groups knitting for charity and driven away by new volunteers.

Two volunteers brought a truck full of leftover plants from their neighbourhood plant sale, to give away at the Gardening Swap. The Tools Swap saw the forging of intergenerational connections between gruff old men and optimistic young ones. The Jigsaw Puzzles & Board Games Swap has inspired a Puzzle Trading Club at the Library. And two parents attending Baby & Toddler Supplies Swap in anticipation of their foster child connected with parents who had raised foster children and helped them make plans.

The Repair Cafe and Swap series has had far-reaching positive impacts on the Sooke community overall. Thrift stores love our donations! The Community Hall is getting more paid rentals of the downstairs space we use, because more people know this space is available and affordable. The library has been able to export its expertise in hosting such events to other regional libraries.  Dozens of truckloads of items have been kept out of Hartland Road Landfill.

There is no way to count in dollars the value of people organizing their possessions, feeling generous, receiving gifts, or helping someone learn to fix an extension cord. The value of people being confident about participating in our local services is an immense benefit to our community.  The program of Repair Cafes and Swaps are ground zero for waves of community actions — small actions, real actions– build community.

Chris Moss

Sublimation is the conversion of matter between solid and the gaseous phases with no intermediate liquid stage. The opposite of sublimation is “deposition”, where water vapor changes directly into ice—snowflakes and frost.

Climate change is altering the way snow enters the water cycle.

In January, as I looked out on my deck, I noticed that the snow on the glass table was decreasing but there was no water on the table. The snow was evaporating directly into the air in a process of sublimation. This process also occurs in the mountains of the Cascadia Range in the western United States, as Tim Smedley describes in The Last Drop – solving the World’s Water Crisis.  So, not only are snow packs declining because of low precipitation, also they are evaporating at a greater rate. 

Snowpack sublimation means less melt water. Less melt water will lead to dry streambeds earlier in the year and less water will enter the “interflow” level under the ground.  The interflow water soaks down to an impermeable layer and starts to fill the spaces underground.  At some point it will “level off” into what we call the water table, that point where we find water if we dig far enough into the soil.

If you use a domestic well system you know exactly where the water table is in reference to your water pump down the well. If you measure or “log” your well, you can easily guess if your water is going to run out as the water table around the well drops down over the summer.  You become very aware of your water use when you log your well and start to see the water table dropping.

You cannot fill a well up with hauled water. It simply disperses into the ground.  If your well goes dry you must find another way to bring water to your home.  For an increasing number of people in the Sooke, East Sooke, Otter Point, Shirley and Jordan River areas, this usually means buying water or having it hauled to your house from Sooke.  To use it, however, is a different story.

Some people haul their own water and use it directly from their small pickup truck tanks.  Others opt to install a large cistern tank and have it professionally plumbed into their homes.  Both can be expensive propositions, especially if they are used to “free” water from their wells.

In Sooke, rainwater is in abundance during our winter months, even if the rain comes down in shorter but heavier periods. Harvest that rain into a large cistern plumbed into your house system with the same filtration and UV light that you would use for well water, and you have a free supply of water to get you through the summer!  Well, free after the purchase and installation costs of making it all happen. 

The cost of buying and hauling water will only increase over time, and that’s a continuing expense. You pay for a rainwater system once, and even with upkeep costs, it will soon pay for itself. 

If building codes required rainwater harvesting, every house would have potential for water self-sufficiency without the annual well-hauled water shuffle.

Lynn Moss

Until a few days ago, the weather has been seasonably cold and frosty with lots of clear sunny days. These recharge the solar storage or accounts that are being devoured by our need to feel warm. Even though we had some snow in recent days, only a few millimeters have fallen and happily the sidewalks and roads are only icy in places, and we are not slipping and skidding.

But wait- the snow that makes driving and walking difficult and delights children is the precipitation we normally get in winter which fills up the natural water storage in the land. The past few summers have been dry and we have witnessed the stressed and distressed plants and seen how normally stable trees have blown down in the autumn storms.

The climate news reports this was the second driest January since records were kept. We humans tend to think of our own comforts instead of what the land needs. Let’s remember that if the land suffers, all life on it suffers too, including us.

So as this snow melts and gives way to (hopefully) to spring precipitation,  do what you can to keep the water on and in the soil. Let the rain to soak in and feed the streams. As the snow at higher elevations melts slowly in spring, there will still be some standing water in fields and a few yards and ditches. It is vitally important to let it stand and slowly soak in as the land can absorb it. 

In many places in the world it is recognized that dams, solid sided ditches and culverts interfere with natural seasonal flooding and that standing water which carries upstream sediment and minerals is a natural and healthy recharging of the groundwater which all life needs. We think of standing water as a breeding ground for insects like mosquitoes, which it is in warmer weather, but it also is home to frogs and other life that keep the mosquitoes under control. Nothing says spring like the serenading of frogs in the evening. Let water stand because with this winter’s lack of precipitation, it is needed more than ever.

Chris Moss

When we had our rain water harvest tank of 3000 gallons installed we dug a small area to receive the excess water once the tank was full.  The first year it happily flooded the small field downhill.  The next spring we had a swale dug to hold up to 6000 gallons of runoff from the roof.  Since that time the rainwater fills the swale each winter and slowly allows the water to seep into the surrounding land, forests and aquifer underneath. This water supply lasts until the rainfall reduces in the Spring. 

This year on January 20^th, I noticed that the pond is now half empty, waiting for new rains to fall.  If they do, great.  If not, we might be heading for another dry summer earlier than we thought.  Fortunately we had good rainfall late last year which filled up the Sooke Lake reservoir to 94.9 %.  This is just about at the minimum amount required by the CRD water system to supply all the water they need to meet local demand for the year. 

There are many ways to keep track of Sooke’s water and drought levels. You can watch the water levels at Sooke Lake online simply by typing ”Sooke Lake water level”  in your browser (or clicking here)    The site offers a weekly update and yearly summaries which clearly show the annual charge and discharge of water volumes from the dam.  2025 looks like it will fall within the normal parameters for water storage. 

The next site you might want to look at is the BC Drought Information Portal. This site will give you the current conditions in areas of BC and a useful chart to compare regions and much more; Angling Closure Information Bulletins, Temporary Protection Orders, BC Energy Regulator Directives, and Local Water Restrictions, BC stream flow maps, Precipitation Conditions Map, Groundwater Conditions Map, 30-day Low Streamflow Forecast, Snow Basin Indices Map,  and a really interesting national Map at the Canadian Drought Monitor site.

The Canadian Drought Monitor shares monthly drought conditions across Canada ( for example you can learn that as of Jan 2025 there is an extreme drought in Northern Canada) as well as historical data and drought forecasts. It contains links to the US Drought Monitor, the North American Drought and the Mexican Drought monitors.

The Groundwater maps on the BC Drought Information Portal are based on Provincial observation wells.  Sooke has two of these at the top of Phillips Road into Aquifer 599, which is the Sooke River shallow aquifer,  and into Aquifer 606, the deep aquifer.  The map shows that in January 2025 we are below normal in the level of groundwater that we should have for this time of year.  The Precipitation maps for our area show a disturbing trend this year. Most Vancouver Island rainfall is substantially less than the medium level for this time of year.

From DEC 25 to JAN 23 (2025) Victoria had 70 mm less rain than normal. Port Alberni had 159 mm less than normal. Sooke will fall somewhere between those two values. Lack of rainfall, lower than normal groundwater levels and even my small swale half empty in the middle of January all indicate a dry winter and a dry spring.  These are continuing reasons to remember to conserve water year round and to never take it for granted that the recharge of water, whether in the ground, our wells, our reservoir will occur over the winter months.  

By Chris Moss, resident of Otter Point

In our temperate climate it is not unusual to see clouds in the trees.  Many times these clouds do not appear to be part of any other weather system. They seem to appear spontaneously in the forested areas of our region.  They are the result of the transpiration of trees pushing water vapour into the air which then condenses into clouds.  But there is more going on than just a simple mini “water cycle”.  The complexities of cloud formation in forests globally has only recently been studied using years of data from satellites.  In 2021 the  Journal Nature Communications (1) published an extensive review of cloud formation in forests and their effect on global climate.

“Forests play a key role in humanity’s current challenge to mitigate climate change thanks to their capacity to sequester carbon. Preserving and expanding forest cover is considered essential to enhance this carbon sink. However, changing the forest cover can further affect the climate system through biophysical effects. One such effect that is seldom studied is how afforestation can alter the cloud regime, which can potentially have repercussions on the hydrological cycle, the surface radiation budget and on planetary albedo itself. Here we provide a global scale assessment of this effect derived from satellite remote sensing observations. We show that for 67% of sampled areas across the world, afforestation would increase low level cloud cover, which should have a cooling effect on the planet. We further reveal a dependency of this effect on forest type, notably in Europe where needleleaf forests generate more clouds than broadleaf forests.”

Low level forest clouds reflect the sun’s energy, thereby lowering temperature. The clouds retain moisture and return it to the forested area.  In non-forested areas the moisture is drawn directly upwards and if there is enough moisture this can form higher level clouds. However, high level clouds like cumulus and thunderclouds usually dissipate as soon as the sun’s warmth fades.  They can flatten and form a layer of status cloud that traps heat and reflects it down to the ground and increases night time temperatures. 

“The fact that Earth’s vegetation cover can affect rainfall has been known for a long time. The Amazon forest generates about half of its own rainfall by recycling moisture lost through evaporation.”

During the B.C. heat dome of 2021 the Island town of Tofino nearly ran out of water.  The Mayor explained that it was only through the existence of trees on Muir’s Island ( because they had been saved from logging) that captured wet moist air and fog blowing in from the ocean every day and dropped it to the ground and into the Tofino water catchment system, that the town avoided a total shutdown of its water system.

We must be aware of the changes we make when we reduce or level the forest around us.  If we upset the balance we will find ourselves in a hotter dryer climate, with a loss of bio-diversity, and drought very quickly.

• Duveiller,Filipponi,Ceglar,Bojanowski,Alkama,Cescatti,Alessandro.2021,
  Revealing the widespread potential of forests to increase low level cloud cover
  Nature Communications

By Lynn Moss

In the November newsletter was a bit on using men’s Y front underpants to test soil, based on an anecdote in Tim Smedley’s book  “The Last Drop “. The rest of the story is both funny and instructive. The movement (so to speak) appears to have started in California ( where else?)  with the California Farmers Guild  in 2017 challenging other farmers to bury cotton undies in a field and in two months dig them up. First Oregon responded to the challenge, then Cornwall England and it went from there with the hashtag #Soilyourundies”. 

After two months in healthy soil, the teeming microbial life will reduce the undies to tatters and leave only the elastic waistband intact. In Smedley’s book, he and contract farmer James Alexander went out to test this method on three different farm sites where the Oxfordshire soil is heavy red clay.

The first farm was a traditional “plough, fertilize and pesticide” farm and the topsoil was crumbly and  dry.  There had been little rain in the past month and the soil was compacted by heavy machinery so any rain that fell did not soak in but ran off across the road.

The second farm was organic with sheep, corn and oats and lots of pretty wildflowers. This site was plowed annually to a depth of 15 – 20 cm.to kill weeds, then compost was added. Crops were sparse and short, and the red soil clearly showed darker compost soil that had not been broken down and taken into the soil because of insufficient microbial action.

The last field  had not been ploughed in  twenty to twenty-five years.  It had no bare soil and  a low cover of grass, clover and moss. Of all the fields, the soil here was the hardest to dig; a handful of soil showed lots of roots and the “mould” of fungal mycelium which interacts with the plants to exchange food, water and sugars in a symbiotic relationship. Sheep could eat off the winter cover crop and add nitrogen as they grazed and ate.

Fast forward to midsummer when Tim and James returned to dig up the underpants.

The conventional field yielded a dirty, crumpled pair with a couple of holes.  The organic field yielded a pair that was chewed and full of holes but more dusty than dirty due to the soil’s dryness. The final, no-till field sported healthy, dense ears of tall corn and thick, golden wheat and had spongy soil and loads of micro fungi. The bedraggled, tattered underpants unearthed there were a mess of damp soil, white micro fungi and purple patches made by protozoa or nematodes– and, of course, the elastic waistband.

By Chris Moss

The District of Sooke and the CRD Juan de Fuca electoral region are both considering the impact of more housing in response to edicts from the Provincial Government. In the Juan de Fuca  Electoral Area this means 202 new homes in the next five years and more than 1200 new homes in the next twenty years.

When it comes to water there will be impacts on both the piped water CRD system and the domestic wells and aquifers where piped water is not available.  It may not be possible to provide water for all of these new housing developments. More demand on piped water may reduce the water pressure during peak times. Greater demand is usually met with great charges for a scare commodity, and piped water users can expect greater metering and charges, perhaps “two tier” charges as we now get on our BC Hydro bills. But there is a way to avoid excessive water rates over the long term and reduce the demand on the CRD pipe water system at the same time.  Municipalities and Districts have the option of requiring items within a building permit.  For example, if new housing (in its many forms) were required to have metal roofing and rainwater harvesting systems then the major expense of water consumption in the summer months would be greatly reduced for the home owner.

When I look at the asphalt roofing on many houses in Sooke, I wonder why such a roofing material is being used in our climate.  It is not ideal. You spend money to put the roof on and then spend money for the next twenty years spraying it with toxic herbicides to stop moss from growing on it.  You spend time and money cleaning the washed-off grit, oils and glues out of your eavestroughs every year. You cannot use the water that comes off your roof because it contains petrochemicals and glues, and those chemicals from thousands of roofs are washed into the ocean every year.

A metal roof will cost twice to three times as much as an asphalt roof, but the long term benefits are many.  There is no chemical leaching from metal, they are “slick” surfaced and clean themselves, they will last for the life of the house, say seventy years, without having to be replaced.  Reroofing your house once with another shingle roof will be the same total cost as the initial cost of a metal roof.

From a metal roof you can collect rainwater and use it for whatever you need outside your home and the “cost” of that water is zero once you have the tank(s) and piping– rainwater is free.

Oh, and did I mention one big advantage? Metal roofs are fireproof.

All it would take is a change to building permits to provide a way to build houses with a reliable source of free water and reduce the maintenance cost on your roof for the life of your home.   It would also lessen the overland water during heavy rain events as well as provide a source of water during droughts. Maybe we should be asking why such obvious benefits are not being required.

We spent some of the holidays doing the home chores that never seem to get done in the warmer months and reading. The CRD has a pamphlet on Leak Detection which shows the costs of those leaks we don’t know about or don’t think much about. On a whim because we are water conscious and careful, I put a few drops of blue food colouring into the toilet tanks, knowing we did not have a leak as we could neither see nor hear it. Wrong!  In fifteen minutes the bowl was a lovely Mediterranean blue as the food colouring seeped out.

Our first step to stop the leak was to turn off the water to the tank, flush and give it a really good scrub after we found that the innards were pretty slimy.  Even clean water like we have in the CRD or on a filtered and UV lit well does create “stuff” and that can interfere with the seal of the tank, permitting tank water to seep into the bowl. Well, the scrub was an improvement, but not a complete fix.  Next step was to take the toilet tank apart and scrub and reseat everything. Better, but not perfect. We finally ended up buying new innards at a cost of about $40 per toilet. This replaced parts that were eighteen years old, so that would be about $2 a year. Even though we didn’t have to pay for the wasted well water, we were shocked that we had never noticed the leaks.

We are on a well, so are very water conscious but people on piped CRD water should also be water conscious, more now than ever, because the price of water is going to go up for people on CRD ( Sooke) water due to planned upgrades to the water system. Those improvements are going to be user pay. The Stantec 2022 report to the CRD estimates of the cost of needed work are mind boggling and even though the costs are amortized over decades, the home-owner water costs are going to go up soon.

(Note: 606 Water Group will also be participating in the CRD “Fix a Leak” programme in March handing out the CRD package of tablet, brochure and shower bag.)

Below see the CRD calculations on leak costs:

“Leaking Toilets

High volume water leaks often come from toilets. They are hard to detect and are usually caused by worn or misaligned parts. A toilet that continues to run after flushing could be wasting 20-40 litres of water per hour — that’s 175,000 to 350,000 litres per year, enough water to fill a swimming pool and, if unattended, could cost up to $726 per year.

Finding a Toilet Leak

To check for a toilet leak, use a CRD dye tablet or food colouring. Carefully remove the toilet tank lid. Place a CRD dye tablet or some food colouring in the tank. Wait about 15 minutes without flushing. After 15 minutes check the water in your toilet bowl. If the water is coloured, you have a leak. Toilet repairs may require the assistance of a plumber. For a free CRD dye tablet and Indoor Guide to Household Water Efficiency call 250.474.9684 or find it online.

Water Saving Toilets

For additional water and dollar savings replace your water guzzling toilet(s) with a 4.8 litre or high efficiency (HET) model. An average household can save up to 30,000 litres of water a year which could equate up to $62 per year.”

From CRD “Leak Detection” Brochure

by Allen B. Kind.

I live in the Ella Stream watershed on the slopes of Broom Hill, Sooke BC. Approximately 200 m East as the crow flies from Brailsford park blasting, where the vast amount of blasted rock is being used to fill the last reaches of Ella Stream. The damage has been visible on Google Earth from 2018 where the first cut across the ravine began moving upstream  to the ponded headwaters. Soon after that there was a large lot of trees felled  to the west of the ravine. I did not like what was going on with the blasting (terraforming) of a fully functional Riparian forest eco system with pools and streams flowing between the raw folds in the rock that is Broom Hill. It must be okay, because someone must be watching… Who??? 

The development  (Viewpoint Estates , 7044 Brailsford Sooke BC.) has already cut off a large downstream forest with the changed or destroyed watercourses and pools upstream and west of the ravine with future phases of this development. When I heard that a group of my neighbours were concerned about more hectares up for rezoning to sell to destruction,  I got involved, and started to research the development that was digesting the Broom Hill ecosystem with the stream and its ravine suffering the consequences. How could this be? That makes up a huge portion of this watershed (ESW 119 hectares) It was through this group that I learned of how extensive the destruction was going to be. Small lot residential!!!

As I found city maps that declare Ella Stream as a Riparian watercourse; The Sooke 2010 Official Community Plan and the updated Sooke OCP and a CRD Watershed map of Vancouver Island. One of the watersheds outlined is the Ella Stream watershed (118 h). I then found a full description of Ella Stream with all of it’s 9 reaches and headwaters in the Rainwater Management Plan by KWL consulting engineers 2012.  These documents all agree that the Ella Stream watershed is a unique riparian ecosystem that should be repaired and protected. The area was selectively logged in the 50s leaving parts of the forest undisturbed. It is some of these areas that are now being destroyed. How could this be??? These documents also include standards and protocol to proceed if you are within any riparian ecosystem. If these were followed, then there should be a plethora of reports by a qualified environmental professional. 

Following that, I have a general question regarding the developer’s renaming of a riparian watercourse on maps pertinent to the Development application process: from “Ella Stream” to “Ephemeral water course”;  this does not change the Riparian status of said watercourse. Yet it has  allowed the disregard of any setback required for a riparian Watercourse within the development.  I can see no other reason for such (inadvertent) wanton destruction of Nature but obfuscation and deflection for profit. These maps are in a covenant amendment between the developer (Viewpoint Estates) and the District of Sooke. July 2022 council minutes. I believe that these documents offer context to this oversight. “What are our options???”

With maps in hand, I went to look for Ella Streams’ upper reaches and Headwaters. Reaches 7 – 9.

I asked a viewpoint Estates representative where Ella Stream was hiding?  “No stream here”. Was his reply.

I have walked the site many times to see the changes and take pictures of what I have seen. Soon I will map all the pictures and videos, date, location, and direction. 

I think I know where she is. And I need your help to prove it to create transparency.

Come join me and participate in the discussion group “Ella Stream watershed” https://www.facebook.com/groups/752017700182818/  If you are not able to walk the site over Ella Stream in person, I would ask you to take the time to follow along with the many pictures and videos and read the pertinent documents posted. Please share what you have found with “Ella Stream Watershed”.

To make change we need to bring our voices together and speak. If you have an opinion or question about any posts made there, ask and I am sure the group will work to answer them. 

To see the damage, walk the site together, or watch videos and together ask the questions… “Who is looking out for Nature? Who is accountable?” 

I will be walking parts of the site weekly.  Wet, rocky steep terrain, boots and poles recommended. Other trails Easy and hard can happen on any day of the week, however, we can  only go onto the construction  site on Sunday. There is lots to see from different angles of the site.

By Chris Moss is an Otter Point Resident

Living through the new challenges of climate change, we must change our attitude and behaviour toward the first requirement of life – water.

Bylaws are one of the ways we can change behaviours, but most people perceive them as more of a “stick” than a “carrot”.  Still, strong bylaws, can become the norm if properly enforced over some time.  Remember the introduction of seatbelts in cars?  “Can’t be done” “Nobody will use them”.  Today, nobody thinks twice about putting on a seat belt.  It will be the same with building bylaws.

Provincial building codes often lag behind local requirements that residents support.  Many BC municipalities are speeding ahead on their own and asking for standards above those currently in force. We have seen this with the Provincial Energy and Zero Carbon step codes, where one Council says, “Step 3 by 2023” and another right beside it says “Step 5 by 2023” while the province allows “Step 5 by 2027”.  

Some developers have said “Can’t be done” “Nobody will use them” but it is being done successfully where it is required.

It should not be a surprise that building permits require adequate water.  A metal roof, while more expensive, will last far longer than a shingled roof it can be totally recycled if the building is torn down; it will not burn or shed pollution into our shared environment every time it rains. It can be used to collect potable water year round and can support solar panels better than a shingled roof. 

Having a south or southwest facing sloped metal roof should be a natural requirement for almost all buildings.  The prevailing rains tend to come from the southwest and solar power collection is enhanced at the same time.

Requirements for rainwater collection should be added to all building codes and bylaws for new construction. Built into the design, and enforced by local bylaws, these water saving ideas will become the norm for “green” construction. 

Those lucky enough to have water piped into their homes now face lower water pressure, strong watering restrictions,  and are encouraged to let the lawn go brown in the summer.  But if your home was built with a rain collection tank (say 3000 gallons), you could keep your garden and lawn green all year and benefit the environment by letting that water soak in during the hot summers when the ground needs it the most. This cools the air, resists wildfire, provides moisture for insects and animals, and recharges the aquifer under your feet.

 Local government must construct and maintain very expensive underground infrastructure to deal with “wastewater”. How many hundreds of thousands of tax dollars could be saved if we just decided to keep that water on the land for as long as possible instead of trying to flush it away as quickly as possible?