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Mike Wei’s over-arching message is that water invariably gets bumped by other priorities. “The lesson from BC is that the historical regulatory context cannot be ignored in regulatory design. The science forward approach which some academics advocate is a good idea but has practical challenges. Unless you have specific legislation that actually tells you what the important requirements are, it is very hard to go forward. It can be challenging to do the science. One of the challenges with science forward is if it is not legislated, it is not a priority for government,” stated Mike Wei.

“What will the government do, come March 1, 2022? Enforce a law that it passed with broad support from both the governing party and opposition, and effectively shut businesses down by turning off their taps? Or will it turn a blind eye and allow thousands of business owners to use their water illegally, while their counterparts who did the right thing and applied for their licences follow the law? Either outcome guarantees trouble ahead and must be avoided. But before saying what needs to be done, we need to understand why we are in this mess,” stated Donna Forsyth.

“Irrigation for agriculture is a dominant use of water in British Columbia, the need is seasonal, and use peaks when water supply is at its lowest. With longer and drier summers being the new reality for water management, the Agriculture Water Demand Model is a game-changer for achieving food security in British Columbia. We have downscaled climate data to a 500-metre grid across the province. This means we can reliably estimate the total water need for agricultural irrigation. This further means that the Province can align water allocation and water use. This is a powerful outcome,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

“This summer’s dry weather resulted in a record number of restrictions on water use across southern BC, underscoring just how tapped out some basins are,” wrote Peter Mitham, Associate Editor, in the November 2021 issue of Country Life magazine. “With the province standing firm on a deadline of March 1, 2022 for existing nondomestic well owners to license their wells, a renewed push is taking place to make sure those wells are licensed. If they don’t, users in watersheds such as Bessette Creek in the North Okanagan, could find themselves out of luck.”

“There’s still time for the British Columbia government to save its troubled groundwater licensing system, observers and experts say, but it will require stronger commitment and action than the province has shown so far. The consequences of a failed groundwater transition — political, economic, ecological — cannot be overstated and are extremely difficult to reverse, they add. Failure would erode the public trust in the government’s ability to manage water resources and undermine the Water Sustainability Act, they also say,” wrote Andrew MacLeod.

“The responsibility for water needs to reside in one ministry with the mandate to require other ministries to communicate, cooperate, coordinate, and collaborate. In our system of government, accountability flows through the minister. For this reason, the water champion (or water leader) can only be a cabinet minister who has the authority and accountability to make water a priority; and has a mandate from the Premier to facilitate collaboration across government. And to ensure success in carrying out the WSA mission, it is essential that the minister empower and support staff,” stated Kim Stephens.

“There was a pivotal moment in B.C.’s resource management history about five years ago when the Water Sustainability Act was passed. The only problem was that scarcely anyone paid any attention to it. Particularly the thousands of farmers, businesses and entities in rural B.C. who use well water and have been doing so for years. That collective indifference and the government’s slow acknowledgment of it is about to hit a lot harder than the new law ever did,” stated Les Leyne.

“With this year’s economic losses and social trauma of raging forest fires throughout the province, climate change has certainly become a top-of-mind issue for many British Columbians. The Partnership believes that $30 million for each of the next 10 years dedicated to achieving the objectives of the Water Sustainability Act is key to building provincial resilience in the face of climate change impacts already upon us and – with certainty – to increase in the future,” stated Ted van der Gulik in laying out a How-to-Framework for action,

B.C.’s water licensing system is intended to be a fair and transparent process that helps reduce conflicts between water users, particularly in times of drought and water scarcity. Missing the licensing deadline could be costly and may include fines for unlicensed use of groundwater. In response to feedback, the Province has made an effort to improve the online application. “Licensing groundwater helps protect aquifers and streams, along with businesses and livelihoods that depend on reliable access to water,” states Julia Berardinucci, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy.

“It seems to me that government needs to focus on an aspect of groundwater licensing that would be manageable. Specifically, government could choose to focus its enforcement efforts on first contacting owners of wells drilled during the period 2016-2021, then checking whether and how many of the new wells in use are licenced. The number of new groundwater users is a minor fraction of the 16,000 historical groundwater users. Thus, new groundwater use is a more manageable segment to tackle before March 1, 2022,” stated Ted van der Gulik.