With a historic El Niño already impacting the weather, local watershed groups are raising concerns about the state of drought across B.C.
While B.C.’s most recent drought and water scarcity bulletin reported that “recent precipitation across the province has improved drought conditions in most watersheds,” many parts of the province have been struggling with a years-long drought.
Coree Tull, the chair of the B.C. Watershed Security Coalition, told Daily Hive that fall rains help, “but they don’t necessarily replenish water supplies depleted over multiple years.”
“And with the potential for a strong El Niño bringing warmer winters and lower snowpacks, water scarcity could worsen again in 2027,” Tull said in an emailed statement.
Aaron Hill, the executive director for the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, called the drought B.C. is experiencing the “new normal.”
“We’re seeing more intense drought more often, along with more intense flooding more often. So our weather cycles are getting more and more variable and extreme with climate change. And we need to manage for that because it’s not going to go away,” he said on a phone call with Daily Hive.
Hill said his organization is concerned about the impacts on salmon, as droughts can result in fish kills when water in streams and rivers gets too low and the water gets too warm. Further, it means there’s less water available for agriculture, as well as various other industries and quality of life overall.
With the provincial election two weeks away, Hill said they are hoping to see some “solid commitments” from the various provincial political parties regarding water conservation.
“We need to treat drought as a permanent year-round challenge, not a temporary crisis that happens to us unexpectedly every year,” he said.
He said water conservation is needed at every level, from the household to the largest industries.
“Just asking regular folks to take shorter showers isn’t enough. We need big industries that really suck up lots of water to do their fair share.”
Hill said this includes charging them more for their water consumption, and then using that money to rebuild natural infrastructure that stores water in B.C.’s watersheds, such as beaver dam analogues, wetlands, and water storage on farms.
Some heavy water-using industries include oil and gas, mines, and golf courses. He said that due to the importance of agriculture, they aren’t asking that it pay the same price.
“But those big energy companies are making pretty handsome profits, and what they’re paying now is like a rounding error.”
Another aspect is having local watershed boards to plan ahead and find solutions to droughts and potential conflicts between stakeholders during times when water flows are low. Further, Hill said that we need improved monitoring of water and industry reporting.