Welcome to the web page of the Arrowsmith Watersheds Coalition Society. We are an organization of community volunteers committed to helping ensure that our watersheds, rivers, and groundwater sources can provide for our water needs now and in the future.
Our team provides an opportunity for interested citizens to become familiar with our drinking water sources, the supply infrastructure, as well as the issues surrounding the protection of our water.
We welcome all input, comments, and suggestions. Please send your thoughts to the email address listed at the bottom of this page.
Map of Canada
Map Of British Columbia
Map of Vancouver Island
Map of Oceanside - East Coast of Central Vancouver Island
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RECENT AND NOT-SO-RECENT ADDITIONS:
SEA LEVEL RISE -Adaptation Guidelines for Sea Dikes and Coastal Development -
Draft Overview and Summary - September 23, 2011
EPCOR seeking large rate increases - December 17, 2009
According to local sources, EPCOR is seeking a large rate increase over approximately a 30-month period. Needless to say, the EPCOR Water Consumers Association, the French Creek Residents Association, and many local consumers are extremely concerned. To learn more, please view the attached pdf documents of some recent correspondence.
Recent letter from Alexandra Morton - [adopt-a-fry.org] - June 28, 2009"
British Columbia - It's Over to You
On June 25, 2009, the Strathcona Regional District rural directors opened the door to fish farming on the jugular of the B.C. coast. Every other fish farm has been sited among braided waterways, but this Grieg application is for the biggest fish farm on the B.C. coast to be lodged where 1/3 of all Canada's Pacific salmon pass on their voyage back to us through Johnstone Strait.
Sensing some public opposition to this decision the board did consider the risks and asked Grieg to compromise. But the concessions Grieg responded with are worthless tradebeads of deception as they are either impossible or irrelevant. The media reports they offer to harvest their fish before the wild salmon migrations, but they know their fish need to be on our ocean for 22 months and ours migrate every 12 months. They say they will have zero lice, but they know this is impossible with the drugs we allow in Canada. And they say they will turn off their growlights in the spring, when they never use them anyway. I know the fish farmers and I know the governments, in fact they are often the same people. And most of all I know the fish.
There are things you cannot know when you are 20, 30, or 40 years. Every second we are alive we draw from deeper pools of experience. I know where this compromise will take us. This is how we got all the fish farms in my home-waters in the first place. Greig did what it took to get past the regional directors. They also told me tourism operators love them, that in Nootka Sound they had consulted with the operators and won their approval, but when I wrote to Nootka Sound tourism operators, the ones who answered not only had not been contacted, they did not like the farms there.
A Norwegian corporation has become gatekeeper to the Fraser, East Vancouver Island, and south coast Mainland rivers and our fish are their market competitors.
I have tried to bring reason to the BC fish farming industry for 21 years. My community has been lost. The science is done. The courts ruled the way it has been regulated is unconstitutional. The people of the BC coast are aware of the issue now. Wild salmon are failing and sea lice, diseases and massive schools of salmon predators parked in pens every few km along their migration routes are clearly not helping. Anyone who looks can see that. And yet every level of government from federal to regional favours farm salmon over wild salmon. Since this is a democracy I have to assume at this point that BC has made its choice. There are many places on this coast that government could play with this risky business, so when I see one of the biggest farm applications ever, being handed B.C.'s primary wild salmon artery by the most local, on the ground level of government I have to think “ this is OK with B.C. This is what B.C. wants.”
The next day I watched farm smolts pour through a hose from a truck. I could see the Atlantic salmon in the translucent tube swimming above black pavement falling into the farm boat and I thought, “ This is what BC has chosen.”
I thought about cool forest rivers, and what the first salmon of this coast looked like as they enter the sea. Feeding trout, birds, then whales, my children, you, and the trees that make us oxygen and stabilize our climate.
Humanity is drunk on trinkets and coins and and can no longer focus on or interpret the sheer power, generosity and our dependence on the living world that gave birth to us. Is this a fatal code embedded in our DNA to limit us, an auto kill switch, to allow the rest of life on earth a chance against us? Nature does have nasty ways of dealing with out of control species, and we must be top of her list right now.
So I'm thinking who am I to challenge our very DNA. I have no right to tell BC one salmon is better than the other. You have clearly made the choice.
So British Columbia, here is what I am going to do. I can't sustain this effort against every level of government because no matter how thin the veneer of democracy, you did vote for them, you had the choice and you picked the people who are giving our coast to the Norwegian salmon “farmers.” If you want wild salmon in British Columbia you will need to roar all the way from Campbell River to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, because only you have the power to turn this around and let the wild life blood of this coast survive. If I can hear you I will meet you wherever you take a stand, but until then good luck in your decision, British Columbia it is over to you.
Alexandra Morton
ww.adopt-a-fry.org
The Drinking Water and Watershed Protection Action Plan This long-awaited document has been prepared by the Drinking Water-Watershed Protection Stewardship Committee to help ensure, and to help shape, the future protection of our watersheds, surface and groundwater drinking water sources. Please feel free to download, pass around, and discuss the information in this document.
Comox Valley Drinking Water Reference Guide This document is in pdf format in 4 parts and may be downloaded.
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WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE, BUT NOT A DROP TO DRINK! Port Alberni is in trouble. [Press Release from the "Save Our Valley Alliance", November 16, 2006 - Word Document Format]
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Friends of Hamilton Marsh seek to prevent logging of local wetland.
The 890 acre Marsh which is located just outside of Qualicum Beach (northwest of Hwy 4), has been marked for logging by Island Timberlands. The ribbons are on the trees. This marsh is an exceptional wetland habitat recognized by the Canadian Wildlife Society as one of the most productive ecosystems in the region. School children in the area have used the marsh for their environmental education. It is also a potential node for the Regional Trail System. Additionally, the Marsh impacts our local water quality and quantity. It is a tributary to French Creek.
The Friends of Hamilton Marsh are seeking to work with the Town of Qualicum Beach, the City of Parksville, the RDN, Ducks Unlimited, the Nature Trust, the Canadian Wildlife Society, and others, to seek a positive alternative to logging. Ideally the Marsh would be left as a natural or a conservation area.
If you have concerns about the wildlife in the area and/or our local drinking water, please join the Friends of Hamilton Marsh. For more current information about the Marsh, please visit the Hamilton Marsh web site, or contact Ceri Peacey by phone at 250-752-4720 or by email at ceri@bcsupernet.com. Please mention Hamilton Marsh in your subject line.
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RDN's Draft Parks and Trails Plan for 2005 to 2015
Columbia Beach Weather Station Columbia Beach (Parksville) has become quite the hot spot for Windsurfers. A local resident of French Creek provides a web cam and regular weather updates for windsurfers, as well as boating and fishing enthusiasts.
Water Licence Information
Farmland Protection - November 19, 2004
Climate Change
