By BRIAN PYPER
NSSWD Board Chair
The North Salt Spring Waterworks District (NSSWD) board felt it was essential to respond to Doug Wahlsten’s misleading opinion piece published Dec. 18, 2024 regarding the district’s recently completed water master plan (WMP).
A WMP is not a proposal or project, it’s an assessment of the infrastructure required to meet current and potential future needs for the community. This is the district’s first WMP and it provides a prioritized list of asset improvements and potential costs to inform the board in asset management decision-making, a responsibility we take seriously. Its most important benefit is that it provides a comprehensive “blueprint” of district infrastructure, capacities and potential limitations.
The costs of $46.3 million cited in the headline of the article, is not an estimate of what we plan to do, not even close. Rather, it’s the cost estimate of implementing all of the upgrades explored within the WMP. The full list of improvements is not financially feasible, nor required. Roughly $30 million of that estimate is for fire-flow improvements, which the district is not required to provide, but as the primary water supplier on Salt Spring Island it’s our responsibility to understand fire-flow limitations, especially within Ganges. We’ve been actively engaged with the fire district and they appreciate us completing this important work so we can better plan for our community and ratepayers.
High-priority WMP items — the Maxwell Water Treatment Plant and upgrades to the Crofton Pump Station — have been regularly communicated to our ratepayers over the past four months, including two open houses in October. These priorities are imperative to our budget planning and show funding agencies that a plan is in place for our community. In turn, our detailed WMP and hydrology studies allowed staff to recently (and rapidly) submit a $6.7-million application to the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund, a huge funding opportunity for the district and its ratepayers.
Lastly, the article falsely states that the district has “abandoned” its water moratorium. What we’ve actually done is conduct 10 years of hydrology studies, data collection, peer review and defensible scientific evaluation of climate change. And then we took all that and recommended a very cautious and limited “partial lift” to the moratorium on the Maxwell Lake system. And all aspects of this decision-making process will be open to ratepayers. Unfortunately, we have zero mandate or jurisdiction to dictate how additional connections are used. Nor can we account for, or consider, population growth. The proposed lift we’ve stated is a water volume equivalent to 300 multi-unit dwellings (hopefully to support the affordable and workforce housing needed in our community). Our best guess based on housing statistics would be an additional 660 residents in the Ganges village area, not 1,320 as described in the article. But again, that’s not our place. And so…
In every interaction we’ve had in the last year with the Islands Trust, CRD, LCC, fire district and community groups like Transition Salt Spring and Salt Spring Solutions, it’s been abundantly clear that the focus is on making this island better for all. Really motivating. Perhaps incorporation someday will make that easier, if we trust in our vote. For now, community pressure needs to be on the Islands Trust for the type of development approval you want to see.
And I want NSSWD ratepayers to know that the staff we have are incredible, period. If you have any feedback for the board, please contact us at board@nsswaterworks.ca.