The purpose of this website is to provide source documents for factual information pertaining to the Senanus water issue, in order to correct the volume of non-factual information distributed both directly and via the media by water main proponents.
Location: Senanus Drive extends from the base to the tip of Henderson Point, in Central Saanich, off of West Saanich Road. Google map | CRD Natural Areas Atlas Map.
Senanus drive is far outside of the District's Official Community Plan (OCP) Bylaw "Urban Containment Boundaries" (UCB's). Therefore, this project is contrary to the District's OCP Bylaw. It has never been zoned for urban services such as water and sewer. (See table 5, page 106). As the area is outside UCB's, installing water infrastructure to service this area without a demonstrated pressing public health need is also against the CRD's Regional Growth Strategy.
Senanus drive residents (known as the Central Saanich West Voters Assocation, or CSWVA) have been lobbying Central Saanich Municipality for a municipal water pipeline for many years.
The issue is complex. However, to simplify: Senanus residents continue to justify the need for a pipeline by stating that their water is unsafe and/or unhealthy, and that there is not sufficient quantity. Available data does not support these claims.
In addition, Senanus residents have refused to allow additional data collection, making objective assessment next to impossible. There has been *no comprehensive study - ever - of well water quantity and quality for all Senanus properties, with which to indicate nature and extent of any problems.
[*Note: BC's Living Water Smart Policy requires that infrastructure decisions are made wisely, based on data - not on undocumented opinion or hearsay. Science needs to drive our decision making. Programs such as the C-BC-MRIF Grant program also reflect this. However, in the case of Central Saanich, relevant C-BC-MRIF policies are not being followed.]
Studies have shown that a few wells have treatable aesthetic issues with water caused by over-pumping. BC Groundwater legislation requires that well owners not over-pump their wells, however professional recommendations have been made to solve aesthetic issues (and not ever followed by the District - in part because a grant they applied for was blocked by water main proponents). The response to recommendations has been that quantity may not be sufficient for treatment, which is contrary to available well log data from the Ministry of Environment. Readily available storage solutions could eliminate the need for over-pumping, (except perhaps in extreme cases of water over-use), as could harvesting of new water sources, such as use of rainwater for aquifer recharge and irrigation, and treated grey water for irrigation - creating new water sources through use and re-use, and eliminating the overconsumption / overpumping to maintain pure groundwater for human consumption.
Local solutions such as these have been recommended to Council, however further work was not completed on these recommendations because CSWVA directly opposed a Federation of Canadian Municipalities Green Grant in 2000, aimed at solving problems using local solutions. Despite CSWVA having directly scuttled a grant designed to solve Senanus water problems, members of the organization continues to claim that Central Saanich has done nothing to help them. CSWVA and friends continued claims that the District has done nothing are incorrect. In 2008, a revised Green proposal was again brought forward, but which died on the Council table.
Several past Central Saanich Councils refused to move forward with the pipeline project, despite pressure from CSWVA Senanus residents.On January 30, 2007, the District of Central Saanich applied for a grant through the Canada British Columbia Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund (C-BC-MRIF) program, to fund this project through 1/3rd Federal, 1/3 Provincial, and 1/3 District funds. There are numerous problems with the grant application and the related municipal processes. Among the concerns that have stopped the project moving forward are: development concerns, environmental concerns, financial equity concerns, process / fairness concerns, related both to District processes, incuding the District's recent C-BC-MRIF Grant application, which may warrant an audit by BC's Auditor General, and the Auditor General for Canada's Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.
"FREE"dom of information is not so "Free" at Central Saanich.
This website has been developed on behalf of the Mount Newton Neighborhood Association (MNNA). MNNA is comprised of catchment residents who did not sign the watermain petition, catchment residents who have rescinded their support for the petition, District citizens and groups concerned with preservation of rural lands, and groups in Central Saanich and Regionally concerned with social and environmental responsibility. We have asked the District of Central Saanich for independent third party provincial mediation for this issue, as earlier offered by the province. We feel this is the only unbiased method to resolve this acrimonious issue using an evidence-based approach to find solutions that consider best-practices environmentally friendly alternatives, take First Nations Interests into account, while ensuring economic equity.
The MNNA is supported by the Law Foundation of BC, and works in partnership through our lawyer, with the assistance of the Environmental Law Centre at UVic, and West Coast Environmental Law. The MNNA is actively working with its partners and water stewardship agencies, towards facilitating solutions to any legitimate problems on Senanus, through environmentally friendly, local, sustainable infrastructure that will solve problems while not facilitating development, destroying rural lands or the environment.
For more information or additional documentation, please contact the Mount Newton Neighborhood Association.