The lake was as low as I've seen it in 40 years when we first went north to open the cottage this May. On the shores of all the Great Lakes and their neighbours, the merely grand lakes that drain into them, everyone was talking about low water.
And everyone was talking about that dastardly company that wanted to ship tankerloads of our irreplaceable, sacred, quintessentially Canadian natural resource offshore. It wasn't hard for conspiracy-minded Canadians to put two and two together. Never mind that the exports were aimed at Asia: Those darned Americans were at it again, trying to drink Canada dry.
Everything is different now, thanks to the Ontario government's decision to rescind the Nova Group's permit, along with the federal government's announcement that it intends to ban bulk-water exports. Last weekend, the water in the lake was as high as I've seen it in 40 years. Way to go, Mike Harris!
Then on Monday, there was such a ferocious, sustained downpour that the lake rose another 15 centimetres over the course of 24 hours. That's what the locals say, at any rate.
Let's assume it actually rose half as much -- eight centimetres, say. By that estimate, the water added to our 7,500-hectare lake over the course of a single day amounted to six million cubic metres. That's six billion litres in 24 hours -- exactly twice as much water as the Nova Group proposed to remove from Lake Superior over the course of five years.
Ours is not a great lake. It is less than a thousandth the size of Lake Superior in area and even smaller -- far smaller -- in terms of volume. It is typical of thousands of lakes in wonderfully watery Ontario, and since May it has gained something in the neighbourhood of 30 billion litres of water. Water that fell from the sky, and is now draining inexorably toward the salt wash 2,000 kilometres away.
So maybe there is no conspiracy, after all. Maybe the Nova Group's five-year plan was risibly insignificant in its impact, both economically and environmentally. But not politically. Politically, it created a furor that was almost bizarre in its intensity.
When this newspaper dared to print an editorial asking what appeared to be the obvious question in this case -- what's the problem? -- readers responded ferociously. Few editorials have ever elicited such a response, I am told, and none a response so uniform in disagreement.
The politicians got the message and responded accordingly. But the anti-export brigade has scarcely quieted. Still we are being warned about vast conspiracies to divert Canadian rivers southward, and moreover that sinister trade agreements make it impossible for us to resist such schemes.
Without endorsing unrestricted free trade in water, one is forced to agree with B.C. lawyer John Carten, who represents Sun Belt Water Inc., a California firm keen to buy a few tankerloads of West Coast water: "Whenever the subject of the export of water arises in Canada, we go a little goofy."
Goofy is a euphemism; "hypocritical" would be more accurate. Many Canadians who wouldn't hesitate to fuel their grossly oversized sport-brutality vehicles with Nigerian oil, or to adorn their houses with furniture made of hardwoods from clearcut rainforests, become piggishly sanctimonious at the thought of some thirsty population putting Canadian water to good use.
The arguments against water exports rarely bear much relation to the proposals at hand. Instead we hear all the usual slippery-slope stuff, with the fate of Central Asia's dessicated Aral Sea featured prominently. As if any Canadian government were about to abrograte every environmental law in the land in order to embark upon seven decades of Stalinist pillage, which is what it took to destroy the Aral Sea.
The one argument that does apply across the board concerns trade agreements, especially NAFTA: Once Canada begins treating water as a commodity for export, according to some trade experts, it surrenders the right to discriminate against non-Canadians seeking to export Canadian water. No one is suggesting that Canada would give up the right to restrict water exports for environmental reasons, but the matter is murky enough to suggest caution.
So are the environmental issues. Obviously, we need to know more about the impact of removing water in any amount from one country and shipping it to another.
But it's not impossible to know, and the International Joint Commission will help enlighten us with a report on the matter next month. In the meantime, it's a safe bet that regulated water exports could do a lot more good to the receivers than harm to the shippers.
For more Environment Links
the UNA Gala98 front page
Wednesday 24 November 1999
Montreal is capital of water consumption
Staggering figures on Montrealers' overconsumption of water were given
at the province's environmental review board yesterday.
The water used in Montreal every day would fill the Olympic Stadium,
according to the brief the Montreal Urban Community environment
committee presented to the Bureau d'Audiences Publiques sur
l'Environnement. That's 1,350 cubic metres per person per day -
compared with 519 cubic metres used daily by Torontonians, and 250
cubic metres used daily by the citizens of Saskatoon.
Montreal's water usage is by far the highest of the 18 major Canadian
cities the committee compared. And it represents 45 per cent of all
water used in Quebec - even though Montreal's population is only a
quarter of the province's population.
"It's not because we take more showers than anyone else, or cook more noodles than anyone else," Leduc said. "It's because of infiltration."
Infiltration, he explained, is caused by holes in pipes that allow sewer
water to contaminate clean water.
Leduc blamed the age of Montreal's water infrastructure. On Lafleur St.
in LaSalle, he said, citing an example, recent road excavations had
uncovered wooden pipes that he guessed dated from the early 19th
century.
See our first Surround Pan of "la cucina" at 388 Victoria
Tuesday 28 December 1999
Water, water everywhere?
Members of the jury that hands out the Governor-General's literary awards would doubtless be horrified by any suggestion that their choices are anything but - well - literary. Yet in giving the prize for non-fiction this year to Water, the jury not only honoured author Marq de Villiers but has also said, "Pay attention to what this book's about" - much in the same way that Nobel Peace Prizes to Rigoberta Menchu or the Dalai Lama focused the eyes of the world not just on the winners but also on their struggles against oppression in Guatemala and Tibet, respectively.
For make no mistake: in terms of water, our planet is in an appalling state.
More than a billion people, one-sixth of humanity, do not have safe drinking water and almost 3 billion have no access to sanitation services. A child dies every eight seconds from drinking contaminated water. Rivers are diverted to irrigate crops and sustain cities that have no business being where man has placed them - paradoxically poisoning the soil beyond reclaim in the process. Underground aquifers are being drained empty, in the Third World and in the wealthy American West alike.
We inhabit a watery planet, but most of the water is in the oceans, useless for drinking or sustaining crops. Less than 3 per cent of Earth's water is fresh, and most of that is inaccessible: locked in polar icecaps or deep underground in sedimentary rock. As Mr. de Villiers bluntly points out, "freshwater lakes and rivers, which are where humans get their usable water, contain É 0.26 per cent of the world's total supply of fresh water."
Canadians inhabit a watery country, but we have no grounds for complacency. Just one per cent of the Great Lakes, for example, is renewed water, from rainfall or springs; the rest is fossil water left over from melting Ice Age glaciers. That fact alone should make the idea of mass water exports dubious: once it's gone, it won't come back, with incalculable environmental consequences for eastern North America and perhaps the world.
While some international trade in water may be desirable, Ottawa was right to ban bulk water exports last month. It is doing so, not by amending trade legislation, which would have left Canada open to international legal challenges, but by regarding exports as an environmental issue - which clearly they are.
The dizzying growth of world population and industry and the resulting pressure on essentially finite water resources imply a bleak future in which death increasingly stalks the land in the shape of desertification, poverty, disease and indeed war. It is no exaggeration, Mr. de Villiers argues, that war could break out anew between Israel and its neighbours, or India and its neighbours, not over politics or ideology but over access to fresh water.
Perhaps desalination of ocean water is the answer, though the cost-benefit equation today looks intractable. It is more promising to reduce demand, essentially by controlling population, and use what water we do have better. That means eliminating lake and river effluents, installing pipes that don't lose significant volumes to leaks and evaporation, using irrigation less wastefully (by controlled-drip methods rather than indiscriminate spraying, for example) and only when it makes sense.
Another option, one that especially takes getting used to in water-rich Canada, is conserving water through proper pricing. If water is cheap, it will be used carelessly; cut government subsidies that ease the flow of huge volumes to parched agricultural regions, and farmers will be more careful. Israel recently raised by 12 per cent the price of water supplied to make the Negev bloom, precipitating a 10-per-cent drop in consumption; but though agricultural output dropped, the effect on gross domestic product was nil, because the freed-up water generated more wealth when used by industry.
In the Koran, it is written, "By means of water, we give life to everything." Yes - and without it there is nothing.
The medium term solution has been to refer the issue of export of water by Canada to the
894 Water
Wed911water
Tue Mar 21 2000 Dirty Dental Water 20/20 Finds High Bacteria Levels
