STREAM FLOW MONITORING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA (2007)

Whether communities in BC are prone to drought or floods, they share an urgent need to monitor the flows of our streams and rivers. Stream flow information has a wide variety of uses, all of which affect the health of local economies in the province. In 1993, British Columbia had a network of 601 stream flow (hydrometric) monitoring stations. Federal and provincial funding cuts helped reduce the size of this network to its current size of 450 stations. Although there is temporary funding in place to support existing stations until March 2009, the health of the network is in jeopardy without long-term funding commitments by senior government.

Knowing how much water is present in streams is essential for all forms of water management planning. Stream flow information allows water utilities to make the best use of storage reservoirs, ensuring that water will be available for communities; it optimizes hydroelectric power generation, and is essential for flood and drought forecasting. Water information is also used for land use and transportation planning, and protecting fish habitat, and allows the province to make appropriate decisions when granting water licences. Over the next several decades, global climate change is predicted to increase the intensity of storms and the length of dry periods, making it even more critical to assess how much water is available for human use and environmental needs as communities struggle to adapt to these changes.

Informed water management is central to the health of the business environment. In 2006, the “drying up” of water reservoirs in Tofino and lack of informational support on water levels shut down most businesses and resulted in emergency actions to sustain community residents. In the Okanagan, the Okanagan Partnership and the Okanagan Basin Water Board have identified water as one of the most important factors in the long-term sustainable prosperity of the region. A 2003 report by the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management, Water Quantity Monitoring in British Columbia: A Business Review of the BC Hydrometric Programs, found that the financial benefits of a well-functioning network vastly compensated for the costs of network installation and maintenance, returning $19 to the economy for every $1 invested. We believe that investment by the Province of British Columbia and the Government of Canada will be well-compensated by the contributions of this network to the local economy – providing returns from a healthy tax-base well into the future and reducing costs of disaster-relief operations.

THE CHAMBER RECOMMENDS

That the provincial and federal governments, acting on behalf of citizen safety, the long-term sustainability of our economy and the health of the environment, should work with water providers, local governments and Water Highway BC, a society representing user groups, to maintain and expand the number of hydrometric monitoring stations in the province and establish long-term budget commitments to support these efforts.