Vancouver Sun publishes 10-part series on “Water: Life blood of BC” – part 7 provides a picture of water for industry, power, farms and people in Northeast BC

Note to Reader:

Climate change threatens to make this summer’s drought look minor. In September 2015, the Vancouver Sun newspaper is publishing a 10-part series of articles about “Water: Life blood of BC”. The series theme is how BC uses water and what the future has in store for our waterways. Published on September 19, the seventh installment explains why water is in demand in northeastern BC for a dizzying – and competing – array of uses.

Industry, Power, Farms, People All Drive Demand for Water

In the seventh installment, Derek Penner writes that:

“Fed by long-winter snows that gather along the province’s spine of high mountain ranges, rivers such as the Peace and Skeena are the region’s main arteries that sustain watersheds stretching east into Alberta, Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River, and west to the coast. There are growing tensions over how the water available in smaller tributaries will be able to meet all the demands, and the accumulating effect of industry on their watersheds’ ability to continue recharging the streams.”

BC Hydro generates about one third of the province’s electricity from the water held back by the W.A.C. Bennett and Peace Canyon dams before passing it downstream.

To Learn More:

To read the seventh installment in the 10-part series, click on Industry, power, farms, people all drive demand for water in northeastern B.C.