Dear Editor:
Saveourwater.ca has been working away for about six years. Saving water is also about conservation and so it is encouraging that Centre Wellington approved hiring a water conservation coordinator in the 2021 budget. This person will work to achieve more efficiency from our well system and educate us about conserving water.
Our ministry-funded Tier 3 study showed that uncertainty and significant risk here are related to lack of infrastructure coupled with pumping increases for future population growth. We know water is an issue and we do what we can to conserve. Over the decade, our per person water use went down about two per cent per year! This is better than most Ontario municipalities. We can do even more.
Our infrastructure staff works hard to find and fix leaks, and repair breaks quickly.
These efforts to conserve explain why Centre Wellington residents have been outraged by any proposal to truck away huge volumes of water to fill polluting plastic bottles. It takes 2 to 3 litres of water to make and fill a one-litre plastic water bottle. Simply a waste of water.
Our water comes from rain and snow falling locally. What we drink is 50 to 500 years old. It is precious.
The moratorium on commercial water bottling expires April 1 and a municipal veto is in place for amounts over 379,000 litres per day. But about two thirds of production from one well could be trucked away without municipal consent. This is not what conservation means.
We expect the province’s decision about Middlebrook to respect groundwater, conservation and our future water supply.
Donna McCaw,
Elora