It’s raining.
I could make that statement without looking out the window and 95 per cent of the time, I’d be right.
It’s almost impossible to believe, but in little over a month’s time, Metro Vancouver could put water restrictions in place. This year, restrictions could be imposed as early as May 1.
That’s despite the fact that, with four days left in March, Vancouver has recorded 150.7 millimetres of rain and snow so far this month. That’s half a foot, if you’re scoring from home.
But that’s Vancouver. According to the sadists at Environment Canada, the North Vancouver weather station on Redonda Drive off Canyon Boulevard averages 2522 mm, over eight feet a year, twice the precipitation at the Vancouver airport. So just take that 150.7 mm and double it.
That’s a foot. Hope your wellies are up to it.
How can you tell someone is a resident of North Vancouver? Moss growing on her north side.
I’m surprised we don’t have a rain festival here on the North Shore.
We could start small: a sodden mass of rain-soaked residents clustered around a rain gauge, watching it fill up. For a toast, organizers could pass out growlers of rainwater with little (working) umbrellas floating around on top. Then we could all join hands and sing the legendary Chilliwack rock anthem “Raino.”
We could try “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day” but experience tells us that it never goes away and always comes another day, so what’s the point?
Actually, the lyrics of Raino are pretty cool:
Raino, raino
fall upon the earth again
and make it good.
Make it cool and fill the river,
fill the pool, quench the thirst
of every fool and every sage
and every sour soul
who’s lost so much
he doesn’t know his need.
Sounds like a mission statement for the healing qualities of the Pacific temperate rainforest. OK, mission accomplished.
Around here, water restrictions seem counter-intuitive. Especially now that we have that brand new $820-million Capilano-Seymour water project to provide us with safe, filtered drinking water forever, or until the next billion-dollar upgrade, whichever comes first.
As the final echoes of the project continue to snarl traffic ad infinitum at Edgemont and Capilano, you’d think our tax dollars would at least earn us the right to water our lawns three days a week, but that will be reduced down to two in 2018, and Brother Nature, a.k.a. City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto, says we can make do with one squirt a week to keep lawns green and healthy.
Of course, if this keeps up, rather than dying of thirst, the lawn will drown. If it’s any consolation, last August, Vancouver recorded 13.8 mm of precipitation. Global warming is coming! Can’t wait!
No discussion of the Life Aquatic here on the North Shore would be complete without an update on yet another billion-dollar pipe dream: the North Shore sewage treatment plant replacement.
After all, in one end – out the other. It’s the cycle of life. Hakuna Matata.
Just a couple of weeks ago, on March 11, senior governments announced they will contribute $405 million to the $700 million project, with Metro kicking in the remainder.
If these guys think this will end up costing $700 million, I have a Capilano-Seymour water system they may want to buy. Oh, wait; they (we) already own it.
Well, the good thing is that for our alleged $700 million, we get 100 per cent odour containment, another promise from Brother Nature, who doubles as the chair of the Metro utilities commission. This is good news for those of us who have to keep one hand on our noses (trying to text with the other) as we navigate daily the narrow passage that is the Lions Gate Bridge.
Even better, for the beings who live in Burrard Inlet, it will be a real upgrade on the quality of the 30-billion litres of sewage pumped annually into the waters around Stanley Park. The current smelly old plant removes about 50 per cent of the “organic matter” from the collective North Shore flush; the new one will improve that to 90 per cent.
That’s gotta be worth a billion dollars, although we have to figure out a way to pay for all these aqueous upgrades. Tolls are fashionable – how about a toll per flush on top of regular water consumption?
User pay…
Journalist and communications consultant Paul Sullivan has been a North Vancouver resident since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Madonna. [email protected]
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