By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
“Water, water is a big one,” the town’s new chief administrator says thoughtfully as we sit down to discuss his role in stickhandling the issues Osoyoos is confronting.
“It’s a big issue, it’s going to be big money and so we really need to start moving on that now,” notes Rod Risling, Osoyoos Chief Administrative Officer (CAO).
In reality it’s an issue that the town should have started on years ago but this situation is not unique to Osoyoos and it fits a familiar pattern in municipal politics and bureaucracies across the country.
Risling won’t be drawn into the quagmire of finger pointing that was prevalent during the election campaign where the word “neglect” was frequently bandied about by challengers to the Osoyoos old-guard.
In rational and certainly diplomatic terms he explains it this way: “I think in any municipality there’s a lot of pressures. Whatever you do or don’t do, people want more services.
As a municipality “you’ve got a lot of high priorities and limited funds and so every year you go into a budget process and you analyze what’s on the plate and ultimately make decisions on what is best for the people at the time considering the budget constraints, and decisions are made.”
For Osoyoos there are two key issues relating to water: quality and quantity. And as “boiled down” as that paints the problem, it is of course more complicated and in fact it is as Risling points out, a far more complicated issue on the solutions end then many residents appreciate.
On the quality issue most residents are up to speed on what the problems are: sediment that has over the years accumulated in the pipes, manganese deposits in some of the wells which means brown water when treated with chlorine as per health authority requirements. Quantity is the other issue, perhaps more murky because of its connection to economically vital tourism in the summer.
Risling says that while increased consumption with thousands of additional thirsty tourists in town is one thing, excessive water consumption by residents is another. At the extreme point in the summer the town’s pumps are running almost 24/7.
“We have six pumps, four of the six run 24/7 in the summer and the other two are likely 20 hours out of 24. If one of them goes down there’s nothing left. So we have to make significant changes but now,” he emphasizes.
The town, which has now unveiled a new website dedicated to the topic of water conservation. When this was announced by Mayor Sue McKortoff during the election Town Hall Forum organised by the Times Chronicle, it was scoffed at by some audience members.
But as Risling points out, excessive water usage has a number of implications including water shortages of course, but also more manganese tainted water and more importantly it impacts the town’s ability to get grant funding.
“It is going to cost a lot so we need to get some grants so that’s a high priority to try to get grant funding for some of this. We have applied on a couple occasions, but one of the struggles is the whole water conservation issue and what we’ve heard is that we haven’t met some of those goals.”
In essence, if Osoyoos doesn’t cut back its consumption – one of the highest per capita consumptions in the province – it simply won’t get government funding for water related infrastructure projects.
“I know it’s a very contentious issue within the community,” Risling said in relatino to water metering, “but it is one of those things that is proven to reduce water consumption, and that is something that we have to do.”
“I can’t say with 100 per cent certainty, but the way things are now we will not get grant funding, if we do not reduce water consumption.”
