The B.C. government is failing to protect drinking water from increased risks that include climate change and industrial activities such as logging, auditor general Carol Bellringer found in a report released on Tuesday.

Bellringer’s independent audit zeroed in on the leadership roles of the health ministry and provincial health officer, saying accountability measures for safeguarding drinking water are “of grave concern.”

“We found that health and the PHO [provincial health officer] are not sufficiently protecting drinking water for British Columbians,” Bellringer told reporters at a news conference.

The health ministry does not know which water systems are at risk and has no strategy to address those risks, the report concluded.

Risk of contamination increases in small water systems

The audit comes as communities around B.C. grapple with imminent plans for logging and other industrial activities in watersheds that supply their drinking, irrigation and, in some cases, fire-fighting water.

In the Regional District of Central Kootenay, at least seven communities face plans for logging in their watersheds.

They include the bucolic village of Glade, where residents have gone to court in an effort to protect their drinking water from logging on nearby mountain slopes that feed Glade Creek, which supplies much of the community of 300 with water.

In April, members of the Glade Watershed Protection Society were surprised and dismayed when B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan said they had no legal right to clean water.

“Do you have a right to clean water?” McEwan said in court. “I’d suggest you don’t … there just is nowhere in the law where you can look and say, ‘there it is — there’s my right. I have a right to clean water.’ ”

‘You can’t drink money’: Kootenay communities fight logging to protect their drinking water

Heather McSwan, a spokesperson for the Glade Watershed Protection Society, said she hopes the auditor general’s report will raise awareness about the need to safeguard drinking water in B.C. 

“Maybe there’ll be some positive action on getting it protected,” McSwan told The Narwhal. 

McSwan said the report should catch the eye of people who aren’t involved in the type of struggles facing Glade and other communities.

“They might say, ‘Hey, I wasn’t aware that protecting our drinking water was so difficult and that there was even a need to protect drinking water, that it wasn’t already protected by the legislation we have in B.C.’ ” 

B.C. has 4,800 known drinking water systems to regulate — far more than other provinces — and 90 per cent of them are classified as small water systems, serving less than 500 people, Bellringer pointed out.

“The risks of contamination are intensified in small water systems, where some communities may be challenged to afford sufficient water protection systems or to attract and retain qualified water treatment staff,” she told reporters.

No drinking water protection plans developed in last 16 years

Sonia Furstenau, Green Party MLA for Cowichan Valley, said the report highlights the need to take immediate action to protect drinking water.

“Communities across the province are experiencing the impacts of climate change and industrial activity on their water sources,” Furstenau said in a statement. “This is especially true of small, rural and Indigenous communities.

Bellringer’s report singled out the Comox Valley as one example of the government’s failure to protect drinking water. The Comox Lake is the only viable drinking water source for a community of 45,000, the report noted.

“The lake, however, has no restrictions on access and the shores are owned by a variety of private and public entities,” the report said.

In keeping with current legislation, the provincial health officer asked the health minister to establish a drinking water protection plan for the Comox Valley in 2008, 2010, 2015 and 2018, Bellringer said.

“However, government still has not established a plan for the area,” she noted.

Bellringer’s audit found not a single drinking water protection plan has been established in the province over the past 16 years, since the B.C. government committed in 2002 to ensuring safe, reliable and accessible drinking water for all British Columbians.

Muddied waters: how clearcut logging is driving a water crisis in B.C.’s interior

Climate change affects water quality and quantity

Among the drinking water risk factors cited in the report are increasing demand from a growing population, recreation in source watersheds and the proximity of agriculture and livestock and range activities to drinking water sources.

“In rural and remote communities that are supplied by small water systems, these risks are amplified,” the report noted.

B.C.’s small drinking water systems serve approximately 480,000 British Columbians.

Yet actions to address risks in small water systems are “inadequate,” Bellringer concluded.

The report also found the quality and quantity of drinking water sources will be affected as climate change brings more wildfires along with more frequent and intense rainfall, flooding and severe droughts.

“The increase in frequency and intensity of these climatic events is expected to increase the need to upgrade drinking water treatment and distribution infrastructure,” it said.

“This is of particular concern in B.C., where most of the water infrastructure is over 50 years old, and aging equipment can be at risk of failure during climatic events.”

‘Constant vigilance’ of water systems necessary to protect public health

Bellringer told reporters the last known outbreak of waterborne illness in B.C. was in 2004.

“But a single event that contaminates the drinking water system can cause serious health impacts for numerous people. It’s estimated for every reported case of illness hundreds may go unreported,” she said.

“Constant vigilance of our drinking water is necessary to protect public health.”

The audit did not include drinking water systems on First Nations reserves because they fall under the jurisdiction of the First Nations Health Authority, Bellringer said.

The health ministry’s leadership role is “extremely complex and challenging” because 23 different pieces of water protection legislation are parcelled out among various ministries, the report noted.

But the health ministry did not effectively coordinate the involvement of all the ministries and agencies involved and lacked a strategy for providing clear direction for drinking water protection, the report concluded.

While the ministry has taken some action to mitigate risks to drinking water, “more needs to be done,” Bellringer said in a statement.

“Specifically, the ministry does not know which water systems are at risk and has not developed a strategy to address them.”

The audit found the health ministry did not follow through on a legislated mandate to provide updates about water protection in its annual service plans, while the provincial health officer did not demonstrate adequate oversight of drinking water protection officers.

Government not sufficiently informed about ongoing risks to drinking water

“We found that health and the PHO have not kept government sufficiently apprised of the ongoing risks to drinking water,” Bellringer said.

The audit also found that many of the committees formed to help protect drinking water have been disbanded. The health ministry failed to develop a strategic plan to provide clear direction on actions needed by the ministries and regional health authorities to improve drinking water protection, it concluded.

The ministry “has not been as vigilant about protecting our drinking water as it has been in the past,” Bellringer said, noting that the ministry’s leadership and coordination role has waned over time.

The provincial health officer was empowered to provide an annual report to the health ministry on actions taken to protect drinking water, “but this reporting has occurred infrequently,” the auditor general found.

Recommendations the provincial health officer made to various ministries and agencies in progress reports in 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2015 “have seen limited or no progress,” the audit concluded.

The report makes eight recommendations to identify risks, improve oversight and monitor progress and trends.

Recommendations include a review of drinking water protection legislation and regulations, led by the health ministry, to identify risks and legislative gaps that may affect the government’s commitment to safeguarding drinking water.

The audit also recommends the health ministry identify risks related to source water protection, drinking water treatment, distribution and small water systems.

The audit will now go to the public accounts committee of the B.C. legislature, and the committee will call witnesses. The health ministry will be required to provide an action plan for the committee.

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Former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government issued 14 permits for work on the $9 billion Site C dam during the writ period of the last election — a move that was offside according to people familiar with the project and the workings of the federal government.

“By convention, only routine matters are dealt with after the writ is dropped,” said Harry Swain, the chair of the Joint Review Panel that reviewed the Site C dam. “Permits and licences are only issued when a government considers the matter to be non-controversial and of no great public importance.”

Swain served for 22 years in the federal government, ending as deputy minister of Indian and Northern Affairs and later Industry. In an exclusive interview with DeSmog Canada last year, Swain said the B.C. government shouldn’t have moved ahead with construction on the dam until the demand case became clearer.

Federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May noticed all of the Site C permits had been issued in late September, just weeks before October’s federal election.   “They saw that they were unlikely to form government again so they began making appointments and decisions during the election,” May told DeSmog Canada. “Usually during the writ period the government operates as a care-taker government, doing what’s absolutely necessary.”   Land clearing has begun on the dam, while opposition has continued to grow. First Nations are challenging the project in court over treaty issues and a protest camp was set up in the construction zone in December. (In Photos: The Destruction of the Peace River Valley for the Site C Dam)   “These permits are really quite distressing,” May said. “You get two departments issuing all these permits in a two-week period. It looks orchestrated by the former government.”

‘The Honour of the Crown is at Stake’

A broad coalition of organizations from across Canada has called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to halt construction of the Site C dam by refusing to issue further federal permits needed for construction of the project, which will flood 23,000 hectares of land along 107-kilometres of the Peace River Valley.   An open letter from the coalition urges Trudeau to rescind all permits and to re-examine the previous government’s approval of the dam, which was given despite the review panel’s finding that it would infringe upon the treaty rights under Treaty 8.   “It’s bad enough to have disputed lands devastated by damage like this. But to have actual treaty rights and treaty-protected activities essentially removed … the honour of the Crown is at stake in something like this,” May said. “The Crown chose to ignore a finding in the review that these treaty rights were going to be irreparably harmed.”   May argued that, given its commitment to a new relationship with Canada’s First Nations, the federal government shouldn’t issue any further permits.   “They can’t undo permits that have already been issued or replace forests that have already been clear-cut, but any future permits need to have a very huge hold until treaty rights issues are resolved,” she said. 

“The review panel’s report clearly stated that not only was there massive environmental damage that could not be mitigated but that the erosion of treaty rights could not be mitigated. That’s an astonishing conclusion. Especially since the panel also found that the public interest case was pretty muddy.”

BC Hydro in Court for Injunction Against Protest Camp Monday

BC Hydro is scheduled to go to court on Monday to seek an injunction to have the protest camp removed. Documents filed in that case focus on financial issues, with BC Hydro arguing a delay in construction will cost it money, while expert witnesses for the protesters argue that a one-year delay will actually save taxpayers $267 million because power demand forecasts have fallen.   BC Hydro has always argued the financial argument for the project is strong because of growing power demand, but economists and the crown corporation’s former CEO Marc Eliesen have challenged that and called for a third-party assessment.

Site C Dam Slated For Audit

Meantime, B.C.’s Auditor-General stated this week that the Site C dam has been identified as a project needing an audit, but no timeline has been set for that work.   “As a British Columbia ratepayer it’s very clear that Site C is likely to put British Columbia into a negative economic situation, at least at the beginning of its lifespan without any benefit to British Columbians,” May said. “It’s for the LNG industry.”   Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party, added his voice to the call for a delay in Site C construction in the legislature on Thursday, citing significant risk to taxpayers and the provincial economy.   “Site C should have been subject to the B.C. Utilities Commission, but the government felt it would slow down their political agenda too much,” he said. “It is risky and foolish. British Columbians are going to be paying for this project for decades.”   Weaver argued that in the absence of a vastly expanded LNG industry, the power from the Site C dam won’t be needed — an argument DeSmog Canada has explored in depth.

Wind Energy Association Driven Out of Province

Weaver also warned on Thursday that proceeding with Site C is actively driving clean energy investment out of the province.   Two weeks ago the Canadian Wind Energy Association announced it was closing up shop in B.C. because of a lack of opportunity to develop new wind projects in the province. Instead, the association will focus on Alberta and Saskatchewan.

“We obviously have limited resources, and we’re going to focus our efforts on those markets which provide the greatest opportunities in the short term to see more wind energy deployed in the country,” CanWEA president Robert Hornung told Business in Vancouver.

Hornung added: “While B.C. has tremendous untapped potential for wind energy … it’s also true that, at this time, there’s no vision of short-term opportunities emerging in B.C.”

Industrial demand for power in B.C. is falling due to the closure of mines and pulp and paper mills, both big electricity consumers. And with the Site C dam on the books, BC Hydro doesn’t anticipate any calls for power until 2030 — which means the prospects of new wind power projects have effectively been killed.

"Rather than let the market take the risk for energy infrastructure projects, this government is using billions of taxpayer dollars to get Site C ‘past the point of no return,’ ” Weaver said.

George Heyman, the NDP critic for the green economy, told the Georgia Straight this week that the government is failing to support renewable energy.

"That's a problem for development of jobs and industry in every corner of B.C.," Heyman said. 

"And it's a problem for British Columbians who think we should be taking advantage of dropping tech prices and advancing technology in both wind and solar and other forms of energy production — instead of throwing all of our eggs into the basket of one big dam in Northeast B.C. with a price tag that's likely to go up steeply in the coming years."

You can click here to read more about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and climate change.

Image: Construction on the Site C Dam by Garth Lenz.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.