“Simply put, since ‘vesting’ is the legal concept that gives the province the ownership’ of water that gives them the authority to manage its diversion and use, none of the provincial laws around water will apply to ‘unvested water’,” explain Donna Forsyth and Mike Wei.

“Currently, the wording of section 6 of the WSA establishes the vesting ‘boundaries’ in BC. The result is that water that has not reached a ‘stream’ or gone into the ground is ‘unvested’. This would include harvested rainwater or snow.”

Why is this a problem?

“Originally we focused on the result that there is no capacity to manage, restrict or regulate the diversion or use of unvested water in order to protect the environment or other water users using the tools under the WSA and that this limitation would present additional challenges for the Watershed Security Strategy,” state the authors.

“Now we realise that it is possible that no water-related legislation, bylaw, plan or strategy can be applied to ‘unvested water’.”

“For example, that means that the laws that prevent the bulk transport of water out of the province do not apply. Neither do the laws that protect drinking water users. In addition, the authority for local governments to manage drainage and storm water through bylaws may not exist, because their ability to make bylaws generally comes from a delegation of the provincial authority.”

A Call to Action

“This analysis has led us to conclude that our first ‘deeper dive’ into the challenges with the WSA needs to be a ‘call to action’ to examine the implications that unvested water has on all water legislation in the province, including the implementation of the WSA tools and the Watershed Security Strategy.”

“At the very least, there is an urgent need to review the impact of having ‘unvested water’ use and users sitting outside the scope of any of our water-related provincial laws.”

Quotable Quote

“Donna Forsyth and I are saying that vesting of water by government is ultra-important. But what vesting means is almost invisible to most people. Often it is assumed that ALL water is vested in BC, but NOT ALL water is vested. Over the years, my thinking has evolved – from thinking ‘so why should I care’, to appreciating that legally vesting is ultra important because of how it translates into what government can and cannot do operationally,” concludes Mike Wei.