Dear editor,
The Comox Valley RD is considering an application for a small family-run water bottling plant in Merville. The naysayers and fear-mongers are lining up.
C’mon people. Let’s think about this without the fear-mongering clouding our judgement. Firstly their approval from the province, which has expertise in what it is doing, is for a maximum 2,200 gallons of water per day (10,000 litres). Let’s put that in perspective shall we?
When I use my in-ground sprinkler and do a full watering of my yard I use about 1,300 gallons of water. That amount is hardly going to cause people’s wells to dry up.
Have you ever noticed that the sod farm on the Island Highway runs its massive sprinklers all day most days all summer long? They drilled into the aquifer, got all the water they needed and no one was badly impacted.
Remember when the inland highway was being built and all the fear-mongers railed on at length about how all our wells were going to go dry? Didn’t happen.
I get my water from my well but it has a fine silt in the water that is produced so my household uses refillable 18.9 litre bottles that we fill at Superstore or Thrifty’s or Quality Foods at a machine. (Exactly the same type of bottle this poor farmer wants to supply.) Except when the Valley is under a boil water advisory. Then we have to do without.
But if I could purchase water that came from the aquifer in question it would not be influenced by the sediment in the lake.
I always thought this Valley would support its local farmers. But here we have some poor farmer coming up with a novel idea of how to put a few extra dollars onto his family’s table and the naysayers are lining up to shut him down.
Shame on us!
Dick Clancy
Merville