Take action now: Support the BC Watershed Security Coalition’s recommendations to raise industrial water rates in BC and invest in watershed security.
Use this letter-writing tool to send a timely message to your MLA: https://watershedsecurity.ca/home/take-action/email-your-mla/
Tell the Province that BC must:
- modernize industrial water pricing
- reinvest water revenues into watershed security
- support drought resilience and watershed restoration
- fund local watershed governance and stewardship
- treat healthy watersheds as essential infrastructure
It’s dry out there
This year’s low snowpack and early melt on the South Coast are a frightening reminder that healthy watersheds are not something we can take for granted.
Coastal communities are already dealing with:
- worsening drought
- declining summer streamflows
- pressure on drinking water systems
- salmon habitat degradation
- increasing wildfire risk
- rising infrastructure costs tied to climate adaptation and water security
At the same time, industrial pressure on watersheds is rapidly growing through the expansion of LNG development, proposed mines, and AI data centres.
Yet BC still lacks stable, sustainable funding dedicated to watershed conservation and restoration.
Healthy watersheds are essential infrastructure
Watersheds provide drinking water, salmon, forests, agriculture, biodiversity, and climate resilience. They are essential infrastructure. Not a luxury.
Snowpack, forests, soils, wetlands, aquifers, streams, and rivers all work together to store, filter, cool, and slowly release water through the dry season.
When these systems are degraded or stressed, and watershed function declines, communities pay the price through
- water shortages
- infrastructure upgrades
- wildfire impacts
- declining fish habitat
- growing climate adaptation costs
On the Sunshine Coast, residents feel these pressures firsthand year after year, through recurring water restrictions, major investments in new water infrastructure, and growing concern about long-term water supply and watershed resilience.
The real cost of underpricing water
BC has some of the lowest industrial water rates in Canada.
Meanwhile, local governments, communities, and taxpayers are bearing the rising costs of drought response, water infrastructure, wildfire resilience, and watershed degradation.
The BC Watershed Security Coalition is asking the Province to reduce public subsidies for large industrial water users and reinvest a portion of the revenue in watershed security.
This approach could raise over $100 million annually for:
- watershed restoration
- drought resilience
- stream and salmon recovery
- groundwater monitoring
- wildfire resilience
- Indigenous-led stewardship
- local watershed planning and protection
The message is simple. Water pricing should reflect the true value of healthy watersheds and reliable freshwater systems, especially as industrial demand grows.
Support the Province to Act Now
This is not an abstract idea.
- The policy framework already exists.
- The research has been done.
- Public support is growing.
- Our MLA and Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship is expected to bring recommendations forward any day now.
This is one of those rare moments where positive public pressure can genuinely help move a practical watershed solution forward — work the government is already doing.
Healthy watersheds support healthy communities, healthy salmon streams, climate resilience, and long-term water security.
Solutions exist. Now the Province needs to act.
Take Action
Please take two minutes to support long-term watershed security in BC.
Use the BC Watershed Security Coalition’s letter-writing tool to send a message to the Province and your MLA: https://watershedsecurity.ca/home/take-action/email-your-mla/
Tell the Province that BC must:
- modernize industrial water pricing
- reinvest water revenues into watershed security
- support drought resilience and watershed restoration
- fund local watershed governance and stewardship
- treat healthy watersheds as essential infrastructure
We cannot continue increasing pressure on watersheds while underfunding the systems, Nations, governments, groups, and communities that protect them.
It’s time to act.