By Chris Moss, resident of Otter Point

Development impacts water resources. The Sooke Region has seen a lot of recent development, and the pace of building is likely to continue.  

The Kemp Lake water system was recently added to the CRD water system. Residents paid for the CRD line to service their area resulting in water charges much higher than District of Sooke residents.

In Otter Point and areas north and west from there, the population is too small to make further extensions to the CRD system viable, these residents rely on wells, stream water, rain harvesting or hauled water.

New developments must prove to CRD that a well is in place for each lot and that water flow on each well meets minimum requirements. However, if all wells in a development are pulling water in the middle of the summer, there is no predicting who will lose water and who won’t. 

Wells can be checked any time of year. Builders may tend time their building permit applications to coincide with early spring well-tests made when aquifers are at peak amounts.  Part of the permit process is to check for other wells in the area and determine if additional wells will affect the older wells. Of course, if an older well is not registered and a new building permit with a well is approved, the older well owner may find their water supply is severely impacted by newer registered wells.  If this happens to you and your unregistered well, there is no legal recourse, and you will end up having to find another way to get your water.

Hauling water cost varies from 200 to 800 dollars a delivery depending on where you live. The local water hauling business in Sooke doubled its fleet of tanker trucks last year and plans to double it again in the coming year.

In nature only ten percent of rain ends up as runoff. Over a paved parking lot, seventy percent of the rain ends up as runoff and is lost to the ground water. Developments therefore should be required to use permeable pavers, grass, gravel or some other permeable medium to allow rain to be absorbed in the soil. 

The infrastructure built into commercial areas to handle “wastewater” can be drastically reduced by planning for rainwater retention on-site.  Put the water into tanks for watering in the summer, install rain gardens and swales which can rapidly fill up and hold water for infiltration or put in a system where the captured water can be used in the building as non-potable water.  Vegetation such as gardens and trees will cool the area and provide shade and fresh air.

It is much more costly to retrofit rain systems than it is to plan them into the original build.  True, the cost of the original build will go up, meaning less profit for the builder or a higher cost to the buyer. Developers will build to established codes and bylaws, therefore it is the responsibility of municipalities and districts to see the bigger picture of climate change and (if needed) force developers to include climate change adaptations in their plans.  

One development in Otter Point met all current rules on water and wells, and yet by the time that all the homes were built the wells were drying up.  As each new well came online it started taking the water from the neighbour’s well.  As one person described it, “You can only put so many straws in a milkshake before no one gets anything”. Now almost all that housing development relies on hauling water.

Developers need to build for the future and consider the use of water at every step of the process. South facing metal roofs for rainwater harvesting and solar panels are a good start.

The community restoration project underway at Butler Park in Otter Point is a wonderful
example of local citizens taking their own initiative to make their world better.  At the
corner of Butler and Otter Point Roads there is a flat grassy triangle of land that used to
be Butler Main logging road. This little piece of land is being restored with plantings of a
diversity of native species. 

The “Otter Point Community Restoration Project” it is the brainchild of Marlene Barry,
coordinator, who teamed up with local nature enthusiast, Heather Phillips; Roy
Desveaux, UVic Forest Restoration student; and Kira Decyk, school liaison, to restore
the land with a three pronged approach: restore the land; engage community and
educate. This is a project of hope and tangible endeavours. 
 
The project began in the fall of 2021, when Marlene and a few friends were going to
‘guerrilla garden’ by planting a few trees and shrubs when no one was looking, filling in
the land over time.  Marlene dubbed it their 20 year project. They soon discovered that
the almost 1/2 acre was not road right-of-way but actually part of the Butler linear park,
so an application was needed for permission to do anything. With only a rough plan in
mind, an application was made to the Juan de Fuca Parks and Recreation Commission.
Since the plan was first approved, it has been developed and modified several times as
more people engage in the project and provide input. The first test planting was done in
May 2022 and was highly successful.
 
On the recommendation of Mike Hicks, who was our CRD Director at the time, Don
Closson, the Juan de Fuca Parks Manager, applied for and received a grant from the
Union of BC Municipalities. These funds can only be used on the Butler Park, which
includes the linear sections as well as corner triangle.  At this point only the corner piece
is being worked upon. By way of community engagement, and to stretch the grant,
community support is sought wherever possible, for example through discounts on
purchases and welcoming volunteers with specific skills.
 
In the spring of 2023, ninety children came to plant trees and shrubs. Each of their
plants is identified with a painted stake so the child can come back and check on it.
Several did in fact come back to proudly show their plants to siblings, parents, and
grandparents.
 
Community members help with planting, weeding, watering during the dry season,
supplying local native plants and spreading mulch, gravel, and other material. The
project has also received support from area businesses, the past and current CRD
Regional Directors, and community members with specific skills and equipment. It
would be difficult to list them all without the risk of missing someone.
 
The core team now call this project their “100 year plan” as they plant for our future.

September 29, 2023
Subject: Latest CRD Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory
Dear Mayor and Council,
CRD’s 2022 GHG Emission Inventory was reported in the September 27, 2023, meeting of the
CRD Environmental Services Commitee. CRD contracts with Stantec to prepare such a report
every two years, beginning in 2018. Based on these inventories, this leter carefully looks into
the community GHG emissions for the District of Sooke.
Sooke’s Climate Action Plan relies on a year-after-year reduction of 7% per year in order to meet
our GHG targets in 2035 and beyond. We thus need timely and meaningful data to measure our
progress year-to-year. Unfortunately, Stantec reports GHG changes over two years at a time and
bases them on an initial value thought to be accurate in 2007.
This leter uses the existing CRD data for Sooke and derives the annual total emission change,
irrespective of what the 2007 data were.
This was done in two ways for comparison. First, the 2022 data were compared with those of
2020, showing a very large increase in total emissions. To explore the possible impact of the
2020 COVID-19 shutdown, a second comparison was made by comparing 2022 data with those
of 2018 (pre-COVID) showing a smaller increase.
2020 to 2022 2018 to 2022
GHG Emission Change +11.5% per year +3.3% per year
Population Change +4.3% per year +3.6% per year
Per Capita GHG Change +6.6% -0.3% per year
It is my opinion that the 2018 to 2022 analysis is more realistic since it eliminates much of the
possible impact of COVID in 2020.
Summary

• Total GHG emissions are highly correlated with population growth.
• Emissions per capita remain essentially unchanged over 4 recent years.
• Sooke has so far achieved nothing toward reducing GHG emissions.
• Building for greater population will result in higher emissions.
• The Climate Action Plan will now need to achieve a significantly greater annual GHG
  reduction than 7%.

Notes on analysis

To get approximate annual percentage changes, I divided those calculated over two
years by two and those calculated over four years by four.

The 2020 and 2018 data were corrected to reflect the recently “hindcasted” GHG
emission factors for BC Hydro electricity, in order to accurately compare with 2022
numbers.

I omitted emissions due to Land Use Change for 2018, since this category is not reported
in 2020 and 2022.

Sincerely,
Kiefer Elliot, PhD, LEED AP

Chris Moss, Otter Point

From Swartz Bay to Port Renfrew more than one thousand wells supply thousands of homes with clean, potable water for drinking and farming. Most of the wells up the Saanich peninsula have been replaced with City water piped from Sooke Lake.  This has allowed their aquifers to replenish over time. In areas without piped water, multiple wells cause a drawdown of water each time they are used. 

Since 2016 all domestic wells should be registered in the BC Well Data base which operates out of Front Counter BC with the nearest office in Nanaimo.

A licence is required for wells considered commercial wells, serving businesses, farms, stratas, river run, and bed and breakfast operations. These licensed wells pay a user fee for the commercial use of ground water. Domestic single-house well users pay no fee for their ground water. Registration in the BC Well Data Base is free and worth it.

The Province and local districts use well registration data when developers want permits to build houses and drill a well for each house.  If your district/municipality knows that you have a well in place they will consider the viability of granting any further building permits that may interfere with your well. If your well is not registered and no one knows about it, you may find that new subdivision wells have affected or dried out your existing well.  There is no legal recourse if this happens – you are just out of water.

The BC Wells and Aquifer Map web site shows all the known, registered and licensed wells in the province making clear how many British Columbians depend on wells.  As you drill down on the map to the south Vancouver Island area you will see exactly where the wells are located, lot by lot.  Going further you can find the complete record of each well, drill date, depth, flow rate and more. 

Each well has a static water level.  This level is the point at which the water pressure pushing the water up the well is balanced by the air pressure weighing down on the water. Provincial monitoring wells measure the fluctuations in the static water level. As the aquifer dries out there is less water pressure and the level drops.  When the aquifer is replenished from surface rains, the level goes up. 

Using domestic wells as monitoring wells makes it more difficult to see the long term changes, since every time you take water out of the well you will do so faster than the well fills up again.  So this “drawdown” is a temporary and local change in a single well. Over time, however, it is still useful to measure domestic wells and “sort out” the daily drawdown to see the longer term data and thus to see the yearly fluctuations in the aquifer. The CRD and Front Counter BC both have a wealth of information on all topics related to wells on their websites.

My wife had a great analogy for the effect of climate change on rainfall, aquifers and wells.  She said, “Pretend that you like to have two cups of coffee at a leisurely breakfast.  Your cup is like the aquifer.  The rain that falls, symbolized by your coffee, comes in a shorter period of time because of climate change.  So the coffee cup fills up with two cups of coffee at the same time. The second cup spills over the brim and is lost.  You end up with one cup of coffee.”  The same is true of wells and aquifers. We might get the same amount of rain per year, but we are getting it in shorter and shorter periods of time.  Once the aquifer is full the rest of the rainfall is lost and cannot be retained by the aquifer. Then, over a long dry period that aquifer is not refilled. 

Building rain swales, or retention ponds, will capture that excess water and slow it down so that it is able to infiltrate slowly into the ground. It would be like putting a bowl under your coffee cup to catch the excess coffee, so you can enjoy that second cup.  

Rainwater harvesting is a growing industry in the South Island and for those whose wells have gone dry, it is a necessity to catch that extra rainfall when they can.

Chris Moss

WHAT ARE AQUIFERS?

Watersheds receive and guide precipitation across the land, slowing and filtering the water that soaks into the ground through soil and porous rock until it meets an impervious layer of rock or clay.  At that point the ground above starts to fill and saturate with water. This is an aquifer layer from which many of our wells draw water.  Aquifers can straddle many watersheds; for example, our house is in the Tugwell Creek watershed but on the Muir creek aquifer underground.  

There are many aquifers on the South Island.  The largest is the 606 aquifer which underlies Colwood, Metchosin, East Sooke, Sooke, up to and including the Sooke hills and across in a large arc to north of Jordan River.  You can it in places beside the road where the dark basalt rock leaks small trickles\s of water through small fissures.

HOW WERE THEY MADE?

Water is contained in fissures that crack through the rock.  If you drill a well into this rock, you must drill through a fissure of water to find your supply.  If you miss them your well is dry no matter how deep you drill.  Water supply is usually poor and the supply is vulnerable to contamination which can spread though connected fissures. 
  
On top of the 606 aquifer are other layers of aquifers. These occurred when the gravel till from the last ice age was pushed over the bedrock. These usually shallow aquifers accept water readily and can provide productive wells if not overused. 

As the glaciers advanced and retreated, sometimes a second layer of gravel and a less permeable layer of glacial silt was deposited over the first layer, creating two shallow aquifers above 606 bedrock aquifer.  This happened in the Otter Point area north of Kemp Lake where aquifer 604 lies on top of the Sooke River Aquifer 599 while both cover 606. You might find water less than twenty feet under the surface in this area; if you kept drilling another thirty feet you might punch through to the second aquifer and if you drill more than two hundred feet you would likely be into the bedrock of aquifer 606.  

MONITORING WATER LEVELS

Groundwater is monitored by the provincial government. Sooke has two provincial observation wells on Phillips Road; a shallow well into aquifer 599 (Sooke River) and a deep well into aquifer 606. It takes ten years’ monitoring of observation wells before data shows long-term trends such as declining water levels. The problem for homeowners with this data is that in the 606 aquifer (solid rock with tiny water fissures) you can drill two deep wells a hundred meters apart and one will hit a fissure and have water and the other will not hit any fissures and turn out as a dry well. So even if the data says water is there, it can be challenging to find it. 

A better use of money would be to require new wells to include a “drop pipe” in the well.  The drop pipe is used to send down a well water ”tape” which measures the depth of the water in the well. One tape can be used throughout the neighbourhood area to measure every well with a drop pipe installed. Tapes cost about $1500 and a drop pipe about the same plus installation by a professional well technician. This would certainly be less expensive than drilling even one observation well. This way we can see the seasonal variations immediately in our own wells and in the neighbourhood area wells. By sharing this information, we can better ration the use of water and forward the data to the government for longer term use. 

To find out more information about aquifers and wells in your area, click here

Susan Belford

As of July 12, 2023 fires had engulfed nearly 10 million hectares (100,000 square kilometers), a combined area which dwarfs the province of New Brunswick (72,908 square kilometers). On July 13, severe storms in eastern Ontario spawned tornados near Ottawa and Montreal. Catastrophic floods and landslides have destroyed towns and displaced millions from New York and Vermont, to India, to China, to Spain in recent days. The costs, in human, animal and ecosystem life are great; the financial costs, for emergency rescue and housing, lost livelihoods, repairs and restoration are steadily rising.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada and Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimate that Canadian local governments need about $5.3 billion per year to prepare for climate change. That’s a lot, but the cost of not preparing is greater. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has calculated that when including non-insured losses “the… economic hit in B.C. from 2021’s extreme weather events is between $10.6 billion and $17.1 billion.  

Who’s going to pay these costs? Taxpayers?

We all bear some responsibility for climate change; after all, most of us have blissfully used fossil fuels in our cars and homes our whole lives. But most of us didn’t know till the last 20 years or so that burning fossil fuels adds a layer of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, trapping the sun’s heat, causing the heat waves, wildfires and storms we know as climate change.  

Consumers didn’t know, but the fossil fuel industry sure did. They did their own studies in the 1950’s but they’ve known since 1912 that the products they extract, process and sell could eventually destroy life on earth. They chose to increase production while spending millions to deceive the public, co-opt politicians, foster conspiracy theories and climate denial to prevent useful climate action. 

Last year the top four oil companies gained $190 Billion in profit. 

I think that they should be called to account and pay their fair share of the costs of climate destruction.

Sue Big Oil is a movement here in BC– a class action law suit brought on behalf of municipalities by West Coast Environmental Law. Gibsons and View Royal have signed on so far, and others in the CRD aren’t far behind. There is a Sue Big Oil group here in Sooke. If you want to know more, email us. To support the campaign, click here to sign the Sue Big Oil declaration.

Fossil fuels have been known to be damaging to the environment for more than 100 years, as the clipping below indicates.

Zero Waste Sooke will be continuing its successful Swap series in cooperation with the Sooke branch of Vancouver Island Regional Library.

Coming up on Sunday, August 20 from 11am to 1pm will be our School Supplies Swap! 

Bring your school supplies in good condition that you no longer need, to share. Take home at no cost school supplies that will be useful for you & your family. Students always need pens, pencils, crayons, felt pens, and more. Binders and writing paper are needed! Maybe you have scissors, rulers, and protractors to share, or a pencil bag, lunch kit or backpack. To drop off a box of supplies ahead of time, email  

FIXERS NEEDED

Are you good at mending broken items?  Do you have skills in repairing electronics, wood items, ceramics, clothing, appliances or bikes or in tool sharpening (or anything else)?  

Zero Waste Sooke is looking for volunteer “fixers” for its Repair Cafés, held 3 times a year, usually on a Sunday, in the dining room of the Community Hall from 10-2.  

Repair Cafés are a free event open to the community where folks can bring in broken items and work with a volunteer repair person to see if the items can be fixed instead of landfilled.  These are always fun events.  Coffee and goodies are available for the public and lunch will be provided for the fixers. Things that have been fixed in past ZWS Repair Cafés include: precious toys, lamps, appliances of all sorts, family heirlooms, bikes and clothing. If you are unsure of how you might fit in to the Repair Café you can always work alongside one of our regular fixers 

To explore becoming a fixer, contact Sooke repair café. You can learn more here about Repair Cafés.   
   

FIXING IS INTERNATIONAL

                                                                                    
A European Repair Café Conference was held online for three hours on July 9, 2023. It was a good collection of presentations in English that helped me put my ideas about our own Repair Cafés in better order in my head. You can watch the recording here 

Though the international effect of these local meetings for people fixing things has spread to every continent, it is still happening in Europe most of all, with over 2,000 Repair Cafés in many European countries and several hundred scattered around the world. Most of these local events are highly practical. Few have political activities associated with them, and those who do focus mostly on supporting ‘Right To Repair’ legislation.  

Two good quotes that stood out are:

• “We want to stop the throw-away society, and for that we need skill and rules to support repair.”
• “To encourage young people to attend, cultivate relationships with other agencies that are youth-centred and encourage families to come.”

What I took from it most of all was the resolution to find out if our events would be served well by getting insurance, and to ask for a copy of a repair café carbon calculator which one presenter has made available for anyone to put on their group’s websites.

Jo Phillips, Paula Johanson, Wendy O’Connor

Transition Sooke Strategic Planning Event, Jan 22, 2023, download here

by Paula Johanson

On Sunday, Sept 18 from 10 am to 2 pm, Zero Waste Sooke and the Sooke Library held a Craft & Art Supplies Swap. We had done one Swap before the pandemic began, and were delighted to see how well this Swap went. The Library’s April Ripley made a good image for small posters and for sharing on social media.

Six tables were filled with sorted crafting materials and art supplies, emptied, and filled again, emptied and filled once more. I lost count of attendees at over fifty people. So many bags of yarn, or fabric, or art supplies went to new homes. The library workers were glad to see many people who said this was their first visit to our new library building.

This event was particularly popular with small daycare homes, and those mothers were delighted at how much they could take. Some families came back for a second turn through the room, and one person came back twice! At the end, three friends came to help pack up the leftovers, and another volunteered her vehicle to take leftovers to a sharing store. Thank you all for participating!

At the Library’s request, Zero Waste Sooke will be co-sponsoring three two-hour-long Swaps in the new year instead of one four-hour event: a Yarn Swap one month, a Sewing Supplies Swap the next month, and an Art Supplies Swap the month after that. 

When candidates arrived at the October 2 all-candidates’ meeting sponsored by Transition Sooke at the Sooke Community Hall, they weren’t lined up on stage waiting for questions from the audience. All the questions will be delivered at small tables with only one candidate present.

Each candidate sat at a table and several participants joined them and asked questions. After about 5-10 minutes, a gong sounded and participants moved to a new table.

“We like to call it speed-rating,” says Transition Sooke’s Bernie Klassen. “Participants get to move around the room and for a short time they get to ask their questions face-to-face with each one of the candidates.”

“Transition Sooke members were eager to ask questions about the climate emergency and how Sooke should respond to it,” says Klassen, “but participants asked questions about any subject area that interested them.”

There are 23 would-be council members running this year, and most of them came to the event.