Water politics
Concerns mentioned in “Treading water” [March 27] are valid. In satellite communities where regional districts oversee amenities like airports, parks, et cetera we get a preview of what their management of our water would look like. That experiential perspective brings a compelling argument for retaining our autonomy and keeping management within the hands of residents, the very people our water systems service. Satellite communities can become afterthoughts, and that is unacceptable where something as critical as water is concerned.
Regulatory bodies are putting more pressure on local governments to comply with costly and complex safety regulations, while providing little support and zero financial assistance to meet those demands.
British Columbians can lobby our government for better support and access to funding, but that doesn’t answer a critical question: where does the money come from? There is no bottomless provincial treasury equipped to pay the millions of dollars it will cost for each system to replace aging infrastructure and address common water quality issues.
We should also expect more emphasis on carbon neutrality and environmental conservation. Local governments have been advised that soon grant applications will not be accepted from regional districts and municipalities that do not have an approved water conservation plan in place. Will it stop there?
Will these requirements eventually become a condition for maintaining or securing a valid water licence? Time will tell.
What does that mean for taxpayers? You’re going to be paying much more for much less. Whether it’s due to the increased costs of providing essential services, or carbon taxes, or necessary conservation efforts, the taxpayers are going to pay for it.
Water conservation is necessary, with much of our fresh water sources at risk from pollutants and other factors. What is not necessary is a blanket approach to a complex problem. Rather, we need to consider realistic expectations which allow for case-specific exemptions that take into consideration location, scale and accessibility. Individuals must learn to control their use of our resources, and not force government to intervene with prohibitive boilerplate legislation that ties the hands of all but the biggest bureaucracies.
Bridget Andrews
Gillies Bay, Texada Island
Nothing without us
I recently came across Wendy Pelton’s Viewpoint [“Finding the middle way,” March 13]. I have noticed disability access becomes a popular subject when people need arguments to back up their opinions.
The Model Community Project for Persons with Disabilities was in a totally inaccessible location for over a decade and I never saw one letter to the editor about it. Now its office has finally moved to Marine Avenue where it is accessible by bus, and no one seems to have a problem with that either. How is it that it is okay to have offices that cater to people with disabilities (such as Model Community Project, Powell River Brain Injury Society, Powell River Association for Community Living) on Marine, but not a library?
Pelton’s viewpoint suggests that we all live within rolling distance of the mall, and that us “wheelies” just roll into grocery stores and roll out, somehow hauling all our bags of groceries back to our nearby apartments. Not so. We rely on buses, people giving us rides, and businesses like Sunshine Organics, which deliver food to our door. We don’t just exist at the top or the bottom of the hill, and we need access to the ocean as much as we need access to any mall.
Quite frankly, I am tired of people without mobility issues talking about what people with physical disabilities need and want, and using us as pawns to further their own agendas. We can speak for ourselves. As disability rights activists have said for decades, “Nothing about us without us.”
Kaia Sherritt
Abbotsford Street
