The largest industrial water users in BC pay little to nothing for the water they use, and in most cases are not even required to track or report what they use. The provincial government recognized the need for a modernized Water Act in 2009; our latest report calls on them to move forward with this. Industrial expansion, population growth and climate change all threaten this crucial resource.
Read more: Counting Every Drop: The Case for Water Use Reporting in BC
Keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter today for links to interviews with author Ben Parfitt.
VANCOUVER – The BC government has a poor handle on how much water major industries are using, even though those industries are expanding and climate change is altering stream and river flows, a new report concludes.
Released today by the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the study recommends that the provincial government build on its commitments to improve environmental management by granting one provincial authority sole responsibility for collecting data on all water use in the province.
“BC’s water resources face numerous challenges, from climate change to population growth, to potentially explosive growth in polluting industries, including the mining and liquefied natural gas sectors,” says report author Ben Parfitt, a research associate with POLIS and resource policy analyst with the CCPA. “Now more than ever, we need the province to commit to a Water Sustainability Act that embraces the need for transparent, across-the-board reporting of all water use.”
The report finds that in some cases the province does not even require major industries to meter their withdrawals from lakes, rivers and streams. In the pulp and paper industry, for example, only one mill is required to have meters installed. There is also a complete lack of regulation on sub-surface or groundwater withdrawals.
The report also finds evidence that the province is foregoing sizeable revenues by undercharging companies for the water they use. In the natural gas industry, where large amounts of water are used in hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) operations, the province receives just $2.75 per Olympic swimming pool withdrawn from lakes, rivers and streams. Yet the community of Dawson Creek is charging some of the same companies $11,000 for the equivalent volume of water.
The report recommends a new model for the provincial government to track industrial water use, including:
For more information or to arrange interviews with Ben Parfitt, contact Sarah Leavitt: 604-801-5121 x233 or sarah [at] policyalternatives [dot] ca.
Counting Every Drop: The Case for Water Use Reporting in BC is available at policyalternatives.ca/counting-every-drop. The paper is co-published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ BC Office and the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at the University of Victoria, with funding from the Vancouver Foundation and others (for full list see paper).
Our newest study, co-published with the Wilderness Committee, shows how "zero waste" policies would protect BC's environment and climate and create jobs. Read the report and download the infographic here: policyalternatives.ca/zero-waste.
Between two-thirds and four-fifths of known fossil fuel reserves have been deemed to be "unburnable carbon" that cannot safely be combusted without leading to catastrophic climate change.
A new study by CCPA economist Marc Lee and SFU graduate student Brock Ellis looks at the implications of unburnable carbon for the Canadian fossil fuel industry and in particular for financial markets and pension funds. The authors argue that Canada is experiencing a "carbon bubble" that must be strategically deflated in the move to a clean energy economy. The study estimates Canada's share of a global carbon budget and finds that, at least 78% of Canada’s proven oil, bitumen, gas, and coal reserves, and 89% of proven-plus-probable reserves would need to remain underground.
Read more about the “carbon bubble” and the authors' recommendations to green Canada’s financial markets in the report, Canada's Carbon Liabilities: The Implications of Stranded Fossil Fuel Assets for Financial Markets and Pension Funds.
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