SCCA Executive Director Suzanne Senger and SCRD Vice-Chair Donna McMahon shared the Sunshine Coast’s water challenges on the national stage, with an article in the Globe and Mail.
The article details what the two saw when they hiked up to Chapman Lake (the subalpine water reservoir which serves 90% of the population on the Sunshine Coast) in November 2022, the measures put in place during the State of Local Emergency regarding water, and some of the history of the changing climate here on the Sunshine Coast.
From the article:
With October now passed, downpours are finally drenching the Sunshine Coast – but the British Columbia region continues to be impacted by drought.
For the second time in two years, a prolonged lack of rain has led the regional district to prepare for “operational zero,” which refers to the possibility that taps will run dry. A once plentiful water supply is teetering on the edge of depletion, and even though it’s raining, the state of emergency isn’t over.
The major source of drinking water for Sunshine Coast residents, Chapman Lake, lies about 20 kilometres north of Highway 101 in the mountains of Tetrahedron Provincial Park. Access involves a spine-jolting 4×4 crawl up an unmaintained logging road, and then an eight-kilometre hike through subalpine wilderness – roughly a 10-hour round trip in summer.
Last month, after almost 100 days without rain, the two of us trekked into the mountains to survey the situation first hand…