Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee special meeting, March 23, 2026

[0:00:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): All right, I think we're up and running. So hello, and thank you for joining us today.

[0:00:13] Trustee Patrick (probable): I'd like to call this special meeting of the Gabriel Island Local Trust Committee to order.

[0:00:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): My name is Laura Patrick. I'm elected on Salt Spring and I'm the chair of the Gabriel Island

[0:00:24] Trustee Patrick (probable): Local Trust Committee. And joining me today are trustees Susan Yates and trustees Toby Elliott.

[0:00:30] Trustee Patrick (probable): And together we are your local trust committee for Gabriel Island.

[0:00:36] Trustee Patrick (probable): We begin this afternoon with acknowledging with respect and humility that the lands and

[0:00:41] Trustee Patrick (probable): waters of the Islands Trust Area have been home to indigenous peoples since time immemorial.

[0:00:47] Trustee Patrick (probable): Their deep connection to these islands continues to this day, and we honor their enduring presence,

[0:00:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): constitutional rights, and responsibilities.

[0:00:57] Trustee Patrick (probable): The purpose of today's special meeting is to hear more about the Freshwater Footprint

[0:01:01] Trustee Patrick (probable): project on Gabriela Island and to provide time for public questions on the project through a Q&A

[0:01:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): chat function. We'll also get an update on the Gabriela Island official community plan review

[0:01:13] Trustee Patrick (probable): project. As chair and together with your local trustees, we have responsibility to ensure the

[0:01:19] Trustee Patrick (probable): community is a culturally safe place for staff, trustees, and students. With that, I'm going to

[0:01:27] Trustee Patrick (probable): hand now to Chadwick our island planner to lead us through um the report on the OCP major project

[0:01:37] Trustee Patrick (probable): over to you planner Chadwick thank

[0:01:40] Planner Chadwick (probable): you chair Patrick um yeah so what what um the direction

[0:01:44] Planner Chadwick (probable): that we were we were given staff was given by the LTC at the last meeting was to come back with a um

[0:01:50] Planner Chadwick (probable): A revised project charter that would consider an engagement, a community meeting to introduce the OCP to the draft OCP to the community shortly after the draft OCP is introduced to the LTC.

[0:02:10] Planner Chadwick (probable): see um so that's what you have in front of you um is the staff report as well as a related

[0:02:20] Planner Chadwick (probable): communications and engagement plan that's basically related to the review of the draft

[0:02:27] Planner Chadwick (probable): um before first reading and then um and then potential activities thereafter

[0:02:33] Planner Chadwick (probable): after. So I'm open to comment, questions.

[0:02:41] Trustee Patrick (probable): All right, trustees, go ahead, Trustee Elliott.

[0:02:44] Voice 6: Hi, thank you for this, Planner Chadwick. I had a question about the feedback form.

[0:02:52] Voice 6: So during the public comment before first reading, you've got there a feedback form

[0:02:58] Voice 6: with specific questions will be created. And then after first reading public feedback

[0:03:03] Voice 6: opportunities through web page and email are we going to use the same form um are there two

[0:03:11] Voice 6: different sort of segments uh for public feedback or is this all going to be rolled into

[0:03:19] Voice 6: um the ocp revisions stage um

[0:03:23] Planner Chadwick (probable): yeah i think the idea is that it would be a similar

[0:03:25] Planner Chadwick (probable): so the idea is that that we should have some key questions to guide feedback um

[0:03:32] Planner Chadwick (probable): so that public have a little bit of the guidelines.

[0:03:36] Planner Chadwick (probable): It helps with analyzing the data.

[0:03:40] Planner Chadwick (probable): And the idea is that there would basically be this format

[0:03:45] Planner Chadwick (probable): that can be followed all the way through the review

[0:03:50] Planner Chadwick (probable): of the different stages of the OCP.

[0:03:53] Planner Chadwick (probable): That's the idea, and we'll see how we roll it out.

[0:03:56] Planner Chadwick (probable): I mean, we may want to tweak it after first reading.

[0:04:01] Planner Chadwick (probable): and of course the idea is that staff would work with the ltc to ensure that the the questions that

[0:04:08] Planner Chadwick (probable): uh are kind of identified in that feedback form are um are what you're looking for

[0:04:13] Planner Chadwick (probable): in terms of like a framework

[0:04:18] Voice 3: trustee yates thank you chair patrick and thank you planner chadwick

[0:04:26] Voice 3: i am always going to be asking about development permit areas and i do know that out of scope is

[0:04:32] Voice 3: new DPA mapping. I'm very concerned about that because a lot of this freshwater footprint

[0:04:40] Voice 3: indicates to me that it should segue into development permit areas for various reasons.

[0:04:49] Voice 3: Now, what about the revision of the current DPAs? Does this OCP project include that?

[0:04:57] Voice 3: that?

[0:04:58] Planner Chadwick (probable): It only includes the revision of the one related to the small islands. We've been able to

[0:05:04] Planner Chadwick (probable): engage Patricia, our biologist, in reviewing that one. I mean, the OCP has a section on

[0:05:13] Planner Chadwick (probable): implementation and advocacy, which identifies next steps for development permit area and prioritizes

[0:05:20] Planner Chadwick (probable): a DPA related to the work

[0:05:24] Planner Chadwick (probable): that we've engaged

[0:05:28] Planner Chadwick (probable): that's been done on the freshwater footprint

[0:05:32] Planner Chadwick (probable): there simply is not time to

[0:05:36] Planner Chadwick (probable): create any additional DPA areas

[0:05:40] Planner Chadwick (probable): at this point in the process but it's absolutely necessary for

[0:05:44] Planner Chadwick (probable): effective implementation of the OCP.

[0:05:47] Voice 3: I am so glad to hear you

[0:05:49] Voice 3: say that thank you very much trustees

[0:05:52] Trustee Patrick (probable): are there any other questions um on this are you prepared to

[0:05:58] Trustee Patrick (probable): advance or endorse the project charter as is uh trustee elliott uh so

[0:06:04] Voice 6: the community meeting to

[0:06:06] Voice 6: review ocp draft um you've proposed dates that are the friday saturday week sunday of avicc so both

[0:06:17] Voice 6: both Chair Patrick and myself, won't be available.

[0:06:20] Voice 6: So are we looking at early May?

[0:06:24] Voice 6: Or is it necessary for all the members of the LTC to be there?

[0:06:29] Voice 6: Because I know we want to get this community meeting started

[0:06:31] Voice 6: as quickly, as soon as possible.

[0:06:35] Voice 6: Do we have any other dates?

[0:06:37] Planner Chadwick (probable): So, I mean, it's best if members of the LTC can be there.

[0:06:44] Planner Chadwick (probable): it's been a you know an effective way to move forward um in the our past uh community meetings

[0:06:50] Planner Chadwick (probable): so um i would encourage us to find a date when you would be able to be present um the ninth is the

[0:06:57] Planner Chadwick (probable): is it you know again you the request was to to have schedule the community meeting um sort of

[0:07:04] Planner Chadwick (probable): outside work hours so that you can have more um community members attending for it to be in person

[0:07:10] Planner Chadwick (probable): So that challenges the timing.

[0:07:12] Planner Chadwick (probable): The next available weekend date would be the 9th of May.

[0:07:18] Planner Chadwick (probable): All right.

[0:07:32] Trustee Patrick (probable): Do we need to have those dates right now, or can we give you more feedback on that?

[0:07:38] Planner Chadwick (probable): Yeah, we can certainly do some back and forth through email to identify a date.

[0:07:44] Planner Chadwick (probable): um if if if we can have some kind of indication that something will definitely not work that'll

[0:07:52] Planner Chadwick (probable): be helpful in organizing all

[0:07:55] Voice 3: right trustee I'm not here on uh May the 9th sorry all

[0:08:01] Trustee Patrick (probable): right my

[0:08:02] Trustee Patrick (probable): suggestion is we take this uh because I know people are anxious to get into the next piece

[0:08:06] Trustee Patrick (probable): here so if we can work on those dates outside of this meeting that would be helpful um are there

[0:08:11] Trustee Patrick (probable): there any other changes that need to be made to this? Not trustees. There's a page two of the

[0:08:25] Trustee Patrick (probable): agenda package are motions to endorse this. Go ahead, Trustee Elliott.

[0:08:31] Voice 6: Sure. I move that the

[0:08:32] Voice 6: Gabriel Island Local Trust Committee endorse the

[0:08:35] Trustee Patrick (probable): revised project charter. Is there a second? Is

[0:08:37] Trustee Patrick (probable): that seconded by Trustee Yates? Any discussion? All those in favor, then raise your hands.

[0:08:48] Trustee Patrick (probable): That carries. Go ahead, Trustee Yates, you want to do the second?

[0:08:53] Voice 3: Yeah, sorry. I did have one

[0:08:54] Voice 3: One little bit of discussion.

[0:08:56] Voice 3: I'm sorry.

[0:08:58] Voice 3: In the revised plan, Planner Chadwick suggests some next steps.

[0:09:05] Voice 3: So going beyond this, if we know how important development permit areas might be as relates to this report,

[0:09:15] Voice 3: would that be included in next steps for a different budget?

[0:09:18] Voice 3: Yeah,

[0:09:21] Planner Chadwick (probable): so as I indicated before, the OCP will include an implementation section, and in

[0:09:29] Planner Chadwick (probable): the implementation section, it identifies the need to revise the DPAs and provides a

[0:09:38] Planner Chadwick (probable): list of of of um of dpa focuses by priority um with with the the water related ones uh

[0:09:50] Planner Chadwick (probable): the the highest priority okay

[0:09:52] Voice 3: thank you all

[0:09:55] Trustee Patrick (probable): right so then there's the second motion there

[0:10:04] Trustee Patrick (probable): go ahead trustee elliott

[0:10:05] Voice 6: i move that the gabriella island local trust committee

[0:10:08] Voice 6: endorse the communications and engagement plan for the next steps in the gabriella ocp and lub

[0:10:13] Voice 6: review project all

[0:10:16] Trustee Patrick (probable): right seconded by trustee yates any discussion i'll slow down this time

[0:10:21] Trustee Patrick (probable): all right all those in favor raise your hands all right christy elliott had discussion yeah sorry

[0:10:28] Voice 6: um i do think we need to have some back and forth about um how the survey or um interests

[0:10:36] Voice 6: are captured in the feedback form um so yeah i'd definitely appreciate back and forth with staff

[0:10:44] Voice 6: on that. I think we need to design this so that it endures for the length of the process. It's not

[0:10:50] Voice 6: changed midway through. We've got some open-ended questions, but not so many that we're going to be

[0:10:56] Voice 6: overwhelmed with qualitative answers to analyze and delay everything further. So thanks for your

[0:11:03] Voice 6: work on this.

[0:11:05] Trustee Patrick (probable): Thank you. Any further discussion? I'll call the vote then. All those in favor,

[0:11:12] Trustee Patrick (probable): raise your hands. And that carries. I didn't mean to rush you through this, but I know everyone's

[0:11:19] Trustee Patrick (probable): here to for the next part of our agenda here which is the freshwater footprint presentation

[0:11:25] Trustee Patrick (probable): and i'm now going to turn it over to our staff william schulbe and introduce the consultants

[0:11:31] Trustee Patrick (probable): from gw solutions so over to you mr schulba thank

[0:11:37] Voice 1: you chair um my name is william schulba i'm the

[0:11:40] Voice 1: senior freshwater specialist with the admins trust and i'll be providing a short 15-minute

[0:11:46] Voice 1: presentation on the background to the Freshwater Sustainability Strategy and the Freshwater

[0:11:55] Voice 1: Footprint Project. I would like to introduce Sylvia Barroso and Antonio Barroso from GW

[0:12:01] Voice 1: Solutions. They have been our consultant on the project and have undertaken a mountain of work

[0:12:10] Voice 1: to come this far and we're really interested and excited to hear their presentation which

[0:12:16] Voice 1: will be following mine. We're about 15 minutes ahead of schedule here so we'll have about 15

[0:12:26] Voice 1: minute presentation for myself, an hour or so presentation from the consultants and then

[0:12:30] Voice 1: following that we'll have a question answer period. The question and answer period is

[0:12:36] Voice 1: is informed by early feedback

[0:12:39] Voice 1: that we received from the project

[0:12:42] Voice 1: in the ballpark of 50 to 60 questions from the LTC,

[0:12:47] Voice 1: but also from interested residents and experts.

[0:12:50] Voice 1: And then feel free throughout the presentation

[0:12:53] Voice 1: to either place your question in the chat function

[0:13:00] Voice 1: for staff to consider in this presentation

[0:13:03] Voice 1: or moving forward and um also you may submit your questions via email to freshwater at

[0:13:12] Voice 1: islandstrust.bc.ca chair yes uh

[0:13:19] Voice 7: lisa thank you chair patrick i just wanted to confirm

[0:13:25] Voice 7: um with william if the questions are to be submitted through the chat function or the

[0:13:31] Voice 7: q a function oh

[0:13:32] Voice 1: i'm sorry through the q a function sorry thank you for the correction

[0:13:37] Trustee Patrick (probable): And you can find the Q&A function should be at the bottom of your screen.

[0:13:46] Voice 1: Go ahead.

[0:13:47] Voice 1: Okay.

[0:13:47] Voice 1: Thank you.

[0:13:48] Voice 1: I will share my screen and go to the presentation.

[0:14:13] Voice 1: Are we seeing an intro slide with water on it?

[0:14:17] Voice 1: Yes.

[0:14:18] Voice 1: Great.

[0:14:19] Voice 1: Thank you.

[0:14:21] Voice 1: Okay.

[0:14:21] Voice 1: Thank you so much.

[0:14:23] Voice 1: I've essentially introduced myself and I'm looking forward to this discussion and presentation.

[0:14:36] Voice 1: I'll be discussing the freshwater sustainability strategy of the Islands Trust and through that

[0:14:43] Voice 1: development of the strategy we had a parallel process with Indigenous knowledge holders and

[0:14:49] Voice 1: indigenous youth who came together and and discussed water and connected around the

[0:14:58] Voice 1: the spirit of water and provided some deliverables back to the islands trust in that project and and

[0:15:08] Voice 1: one of the offerings was this beautiful piece of art here and um and with beautiful messaging

[0:15:15] Voice 1: around water and what it means to have a relationship with water.

[0:15:21] Voice 1: And I think it's a beautiful representation of water in the Islands Trust area.

[0:15:29] Voice 1: I'm coming to you from South Spring Island and in the watershed of the Fulford Creek,

[0:15:35] Voice 1: which is the only sensitive stream in the Water Sustainability Act that has been dedicated

[0:15:45] Voice 1: as a sensitive stream in the Islands Trust area.

[0:15:50] Voice 1: So as I said before, just kind of, there we go.

[0:15:55] Voice 1: So first we heard from planning staff about the OCP

[0:15:58] Voice 1: logistics, I'll be providing a background to the project.

[0:16:01] Voice 1: And at the end of my presentation,

[0:16:04] Voice 1: be introducing planning options that will come back

[0:16:07] Voice 1: to the local trust committee.

[0:16:09] Voice 1: And we'll have the presentation from GW Solutions

[0:16:12] Voice 1: and then question and answer session.

[0:16:14] Voice 1: session. The freshwater footprint project was designed by staff and went out to procurement

[0:16:24] Voice 1: and then through that request for proposal process we procured GW Solutions to undertake the work

[0:16:31] Voice 1: and through that process it's been a collaborative effort and the staff really brought forward

[0:16:38] Voice 1: uh how this work will meet the object of the trust and how the islands trust um undertakes

[0:16:47] Voice 1: our business and land use planning and advocacy and so um i i really wanted to share again the

[0:16:56] Voice 1: our object and the mandate here and and i would like to address specifically the last part of

[0:17:03] Voice 1: of the object, where incorporation with regional districts

[0:17:08] Voice 1: and First Nations and other persons

[0:17:10] Voice 1: and the government of British Columbia.

[0:17:12] Voice 1: And I'm forever grateful for the work that staff

[0:17:20] Voice 1: and GW Solutions has done to coordinate with partners

[0:17:23] Voice 1: like the Regional District of Nanaimo's Drinking Water

[0:17:25] Voice 1: and Watershed Protection Program with the province,

[0:17:28] Voice 1: with Island Health to collect a vast amount

[0:17:33] Voice 1: amount of water quality data, as well as engaged residents and subject experts and interested

[0:17:43] Voice 1: parties who came to our on-island workshop, as well as our virtual webinar that we had

[0:17:51] Voice 1: as part of the project.

[0:17:54] Voice 1: Freshwater is a unique amenity in the Islands Trust area.

[0:17:58] Voice 1: It behaves differently than while our resource is generally different than most areas of the province.

[0:18:12] Voice 1: All of the water that we have on the islands are from meteoric water, so that's from precipitation, rain, snow, and fog.

[0:18:22] Voice 1: fog, and largely there's no long-term storage in snowpack and glacier, which is a difference

[0:18:32] Voice 1: compared to the rest of the coastal region.

[0:18:41] Voice 1: Establishing a freshwater footprint in the Islands Trust Area is a leap forward in planning.

[0:18:48] Voice 1: Historically, the work that has been underdone in authorizations or density planning has

[0:18:55] Voice 1: been carried out in the precautionary principle where where there is a lack of understanding or

[0:19:02] Voice 1: knowledge or data and freshwater availability and an overall vulnerability the precautionary

[0:19:07] Voice 1: principle was undertaken and this is starting to show its challenges so we need to further

[0:19:16] Voice 1: uh scientific um inquiry and and our understanding of of uh the freshwater resources on the islands

[0:19:23] Voice 1: to plan for a sustainable future.

[0:19:32] Voice 1: As I said before, the Freshwater Sustainability Strategy

[0:19:35] Voice 1: from the Islands Trust was released in December 2021.

[0:19:39] Voice 1: It was funded by the Healthy Watersheds Initiative,

[0:19:47] Voice 1: which was a case study for the Watershed Security Strategy

[0:19:52] Voice 1: and Fund that is currently being administered by the province.

[0:19:55] Voice 1: Through that strategy development, a strategic roundtable of 26 individuals from community groups, trustees, staff, the province, regional district, and subject experts came together to help design the strategy.

[0:20:17] Voice 1: The overall purpose of the strategy is to have freshwater sustainability be a key lens

[0:20:28] Voice 1: through which Islands Trust land use decisions are made to support research and advocacy

[0:20:35] Voice 1: for water literacy and provide open public access to information about water resources

[0:20:43] Voice 1: and the associated data.

[0:20:44] Voice 1: The strategy is organized into goals, objectives, implementation programs, and actions.

[0:20:52] Voice 1: A few goals are to, in motherhood statements, to protect ecosystems and the overall health of watersheds and groundwater in the Islands Trust Area,

[0:21:03] Voice 1: to preserve and enhance quality and quantity of drinking water for current and future residents,

[0:21:09] Voice 1: residents, to collaborate with First Nations and Indigenous organizations to understand,

[0:21:16] Voice 1: to create an understanding of cultural and spiritual values of water.

[0:21:21] Voice 1: And through that we have the objectives are to understand and respect Indigenous ways

[0:21:27] Voice 1: of knowing and community knowledge about water resources, and weave together different ways

[0:21:32] Voice 1: of understanding.

[0:21:33] Voice 1: So, in this case here, we have Harold Zhou providing us an interview as a method to communicate

[0:21:42] Voice 1: this objective.

[0:21:45] Voice 1: To improve information and knowledge about quality and quantity of water and to use the

[0:21:51] Voice 1: best available information for watersheds and water resources and land use planning,

[0:21:57] Voice 1: so this includes monitoring and and undertaking technical analysis and to improve coordination

[0:22:07] Voice 1: efforts among various governments and agencies and to increase public awareness of stewardship

[0:22:13] Voice 1: and water efficiency and conservation and general water literacy the strategy has been organized

[0:22:23] Voice 1: into four programs uh in groundwater groundwater sustainability watershed uh science uh cultural

[0:22:31] Voice 1: knowledge and engagement program and then overall reporting and and the governance um perspective

[0:22:36] Voice 1: the strategy is made out of certain actions and and the reason why i put these on here is to

[0:22:42] Voice 1: uh just have a general um point that many of these actions have been addressed in the freshwater

[0:22:52] Voice 1: water footprint project not only the freshwater footprint project has addressed and assumed

[0:23:01] Voice 1: information and data and maps from five six years of projects but also has directly addressed

[0:23:12] Voice 1: these actions in in the course of of the project this year and

[0:23:20] Voice 1: And yeah, I'm not going to belabor this, but there's several actions related to watersheds and surface water that has been addressed in concert with groundwater resources.

[0:23:40] Voice 1: And then our collaboration with trustees and with staff and with our partners have addressed

[0:23:50] Voice 1: some actions and also there's likely that this work will address actions in the future

[0:23:59] Voice 1: like support water purveyors adoption of sustainable water management practices.

[0:24:04] Voice 1: And yeah, I also said collaboration with with other agencies.

[0:24:11] Voice 1: Okay. So the freshwater footprint, as I said, is a keystone project that has been developed on technical foundation.

[0:24:19] Voice 1: that's drawn from previous strategy work,

[0:24:23] Voice 1: including aqua conceptualization,

[0:24:25] Voice 1: groundwater region mapping,

[0:24:28] Voice 1: groundwater availability analysis,

[0:24:29] Voice 1: risk of seawater intrusion studies,

[0:24:32] Voice 1: and also groundwater recharge assessment.

[0:24:34] Voice 1: And GW Solutions will step into this

[0:24:37] Voice 1: in more detail in their presentation.

[0:24:41] Voice 1: So the resultant of the freshwater footprint

[0:24:45] Voice 1: is to generate governance tools or planning tools

[0:24:48] Voice 1: for, in this case, the Gabriela Local Trust Committee,

[0:24:55] Voice 1: specifically relating to their official community plan.

[0:24:58] Voice 1: So the Island Trust planning process is to address the object,

[0:25:04] Voice 1: and the object has been, I guess, its implementation or its description

[0:25:12] Voice 1: just through the Island Trust policy statement.

[0:25:14] Voice 1: And this project has addressed certain elements of the policy statement which are a driving force for implementing official community plans and land use bylaw.

[0:25:28] Voice 1: law. Simply put, some of our planning outcomes from this project is for options for decision

[0:25:38] Voice 1: making and land use intensity and density changes and access to mapping data and water

[0:25:43] Voice 1: information is two of the basic tenants of the outcomes from this work. Specifically

[0:25:51] Voice 1: for Gabriola, the use of the freshwater footprint in addressing the Islands Trust climate emergency

[0:26:00] Voice 1: emergency declaration, including in the OCP targets to increase water protection aquifers

[0:26:07] Voice 1: and riparian zones to ensure long-term water supply, and ensuring the freshwater footprint

[0:26:13] Voice 1: to determine these indicators to measure this target, and to identify changes in density

[0:26:22] Voice 1: intensity of land use to be informed by freshwater hazard, which we will discuss in this meeting

[0:26:29] Voice 1: is a prime outcome of of this work and that to address the island stress policy statement 4.4.2

[0:26:38] Voice 1: that no increase in secondary dwellings in areas with high to very high hazard which now identifies

[0:26:45] Voice 1: areas of water quality and quantity issues so in the policy statement the statement is

[0:26:53] Voice 1: is expressing the note that there is there should be no increase in intensity and density areas of

[0:27:00] Voice 1: known water quality and quality issues which in the past has been qualitatively investigated and

[0:27:07] Voice 1: now with this work we feel that there's a quantitative analysis to those areas and future

[0:27:17] Voice 1: considerations as we discussed earlier is to look at aquifer recharge protection development permit

[0:27:21] Voice 1: areas as a firm as a first priority for the OCP implementation amongst other options and

[0:27:33] Voice 1: the the as I spoke about the freshwater hazard map it's a synthesis of aquifers and watersheds

[0:27:40] Voice 1: the freshwater indicators aquifer stress seawater intrusion residential sediment land use but water

[0:27:46] Voice 1: use behaviors climate change intrinsic vulnerability it's it's really a holistic

[0:27:50] Voice 1: viewpoint of the freshwater footprint, and I'll yield to GW Solutions to provide more information

[0:28:00] Voice 1: on that. And so how staff can take this work and implement it into the OCP is to look at

[0:28:07] Voice 1: perhaps administrative boundaries. So groundwater regions have been proposed as

[0:28:12] Voice 1: an administrative water management unit that it's based on natural assets,

[0:28:20] Voice 1: recharge, geology, topography, concentration of groundwater wells, but also it could be

[0:28:25] Voice 1: intersected in this case here as GW Solutions has provided it an intersection with the parcels,

[0:28:34] Voice 1: which can be then used in land use planning decisions policy.

[0:28:39] Voice 1: policy.

[0:28:42] Voice 1: Also through the OCP review project, the Development Application Information By-law is being optioned,

[0:28:54] Voice 1: and in this case, hazard area-based requirements for professional analysis and reporting can

[0:29:02] Voice 1: be required, meaning that if there's areas of higher vulnerability or lower vulnerability

[0:29:10] Voice 1: that could modulate what are the requirements to the applicant for that analysis.

[0:29:18] Voice 1: And then also future considerations for the land use bylaws is currently,

[0:29:24] Voice 1: if there's a proof of water for the purposes of subdivision article in the land use bylaw,

[0:29:32] Voice 1: it covers the entire island without discretion.

[0:29:37] Voice 1: And so it's an option to have variable requirements for proof of water, which considers the spatial variability of freshwater hazard across the island.

[0:29:49] Voice 1: And same with cistern requirements in the land use bylaw that there can be an option for variable cistern requirements based on...

[0:30:00] Voice 1: freshwater hazard and we've seen this before in water management areas for Galliano in particular

[0:30:08] Voice 1: and I think that's it yeah so that's my short presentation there and I'll just stop sharing

[0:30:18] Voice 1: and yeah through the chair I'm not sure if we want to take questions now but if there's anything that

[0:30:24] Voice 1: you'd like to clarify I'm open I

[0:30:27] Trustee Patrick (probable): was going to say we I don't know when we see trustee Yates but I

[0:30:29] Trustee Patrick (probable): I thought we'd kind of move right into the next presentation.

[0:30:31] Trustee Patrick (probable): Trustee Yates, do you have a quick question?

[0:30:34] Voice 3: Well, just a couple relating directly to Freshwater Specialist Shobo's report,

[0:30:41] Voice 3: but I'm happy to keep them to the end of the session.

[0:30:46] Voice 1: Chair, I'll just say that we, from our previously scheduled time,

[0:30:51] Voice 1: we are 20 minutes ahead of schedule, so we can have that time

[0:30:56] Voice 1: I'm just put towards the question and answer at the end.

[0:31:01] Voice 1: Yeah,

[0:31:01] Trustee Patrick (probable): I think let's keep moving and have a robust Q&A at the end, I think would be the

[0:31:06] Trustee Patrick (probable): best way to go forward.

[0:31:07] Voice 1: Sure, that's great.

[0:31:08] Voice 1: Well, thank you, Chair.

[0:31:10] Voice 1: So yeah, next up, without further ado, we have our consultants, GW Solutions, and I

[0:31:16] Voice 1: believe Sylvia will be navigating us through their presentation.

[0:31:23] Voice 1: And yeah, just on a personal note, this has been such a wonderful experience to undertake this work with GW Solutions, but also with the Gabriel Island community.

[0:31:39] Voice 1: community, there's a lot of momentum in watershed protection and freshwater sustainability work

[0:31:49] Voice 1: on the island through partners agencies but also through water champions on the island

[0:31:54] Voice 1: and we had a chance to interact deeply with several of them in this work and so I really

[0:32:03] Voice 1: appreciate GW Solutions being a steward for this work and participating so deeply in it and yeah

[0:32:12] Voice 1: so without further thanks all

[0:32:16] Voice 4: right can everyone hear me okay excellent so yeah I'm very happy to

[0:32:25] Voice 4: be here today to share with you the results of the Island's Trust Freshwater Footprint

[0:32:32] Voice 4: assessment project. I'm speaking to you today from the traditional unceded territory of the

[0:32:40] Voice 4: Tsunamook First Nation and I can see Gabriela from my house and yeah I think that it's a very

[0:32:49] Voice 4: important work that has been undertaken so I'm happy for this discussion to take place.

[0:32:54] Voice 4: So the Freshwater Footprint project essentially took place beginning in December 2024 and involved collating information,

[0:33:08] Voice 4: technical information about groundwater resources on the island that has built on a number of years of work that GW Solutions has done in the trust area

[0:33:19] Voice 4: with the Islands Trust on groundwater sustainability and groundwater assessments.

[0:33:25] Voice 4: So we were lucky to take this work to the next step,

[0:33:31] Voice 4: integrating information on hydrogeostratigraphic model of the island,

[0:33:38] Voice 4: completing and revising a water balance assessment for the island,

[0:33:42] Voice 4: And then looking at water footprint methodologies and adapting those to the local as a pilot study on the Gabriola.

[0:33:59] Voice 4: An important piece of the work was also incorporating communications and feedback and input of the local community.

[0:34:08] Voice 4: So that took the form of a community freshwater survey and a series of workshops that were held, including a freshwater monitoring workshop that had input from BC Conservation Foundation, Ministry of Environment and Parks, and Regional District of Nanaimo, as well as ourselves talking about water monitoring options for the island.

[0:34:31] Voice 4: and then there was an on-island workshop to discuss methodologies and how to define

[0:34:39] Voice 4: freshwater footprint for the island and then taking that we rolled it up into the gabriel

[0:34:45] Voice 4: case study and summary so today is the last step of the community piece which is to present

[0:34:55] Voice 4: the results of the community and then of course hopefully this will bridge into

[0:35:01] Voice 4: policy and other actions to be taken to try to implement the work and continue to protect

[0:35:07] Voice 4: groundwater resources on the island. So this is an overview of the trust area and many of you

[0:35:17] Voice 4: are familiar that the islands trust is a particularly groundwater dependent region.

[0:35:23] Voice 4: region. Most of the water that is found on the islands occurs within both fractured bedrock

[0:35:32] Voice 4: and unconsolidated sand and gravel aquifers provided to residences and properties through

[0:35:39] Voice 4: private wells and small water systems. Some of the larger islands do have appreciable

[0:35:45] Voice 4: surface water sources, including on Salt Spring and on Bowen Island, but it is a uniquely

[0:35:51] Voice 4: clay groundwater dependent region. In terms of aquifers, most of the aquifers are fractured

[0:35:57] Voice 4: bedrock aquifers that have limited productivity and storage. And then there's also both a high

[0:36:04] Voice 4: spatial variability in water productivity in terms of wells, but also there's seasonal variability.

[0:36:12] Voice 4: So you'll have most of the recharges occurring during the winter period, whereas there's peaks

[0:36:17] Voice 4: in water usage during the summer period,

[0:36:20] Voice 4: as well as increase in population at that time.

[0:36:24] Voice 4: Also, we're dealing with the fact

[0:36:27] Voice 4: that these are a limited island setting.

[0:36:29] Voice 4: So all the water, as William has already pointed out,

[0:36:33] Voice 4: all of the water that is available on the island

[0:36:35] Voice 4: comes as precipitation over the footprint of the island.

[0:36:39] Voice 4: There's no outside source that can come in.

[0:36:41] Voice 4: And so it's a limited source in that manner.

[0:36:46] Voice 4: And then the freshwater is underlain or by saline water and surrounded by saline water.

[0:36:54] Voice 4: So not only is the quantity limited, but also the resource needs to be carefully managed to prevent intrusion of saline water into the freshwater source.

[0:37:06] Voice 4: also we need to consider not only human uses of water but also ecological uses of water

[0:37:12] Voice 4: because we recognize that the groundwater aquifers are hydraulically connected to

[0:37:18] Voice 4: surface water systems so water availability doesn't just depend on water coming into the

[0:37:27] Voice 4: system or water sustainability doesn't just depend on how much is there but also on our

[0:37:34] Voice 4: personal behavior and that's the the truth with all resources so um there's a long history and

[0:37:42] Voice 4: literature to do with ecological footprint and the idea of carrying capacity and sustainability and

[0:37:50] Voice 4: so that's what we started to build on this idea of what are the resources what what is needed

[0:37:58] Voice 4: it to sustain the individual living on the island or a community living on an island.

[0:38:05] Voice 4: Some examples of work that already has been done in the trust area was the One Island,

[0:38:11] Voice 4: One Earth ecological footprint calculation that was done on Galliano Island but looked at the

[0:38:18] Voice 4: full ecological footprint of the community. And that particular study didn't look at the

[0:38:28] Voice 4: water availability but looked at other resources like hydrocarbons looking at food local food

[0:38:34] Voice 4: security and those types of things and in general it was recognized that the lifestyle of folks

[0:38:42] Voice 4: living on the island tends to be of a smaller footprint in comparison to other communities

[0:38:48] Voice 4: but that there needs to be that growing awareness and there need to be targets so that we can

[0:38:54] Voice 4: adjust and modify our behavior so that we can continue to live sustainably.

[0:39:00] Voice 4: Other types of examples of footprint have been water footprint calculators where they look at

[0:39:06] Voice 4: the full life cycle of a product, for example, from when it was produced to when it was used

[0:39:13] Voice 4: and when it was disposed of and looked at all the water components of that. And that's something

[0:39:19] Voice 4: something that we, you know, looked at as a potential, but that's not the focus in this case.

[0:39:28] Voice 4: So when we're thinking about groundwater sustainability, a really great way to define it,

[0:39:33] Voice 4: and this was defined by Tom Gleason, University of Victoria, was the idea that you want to maintain

[0:39:44] Voice 4: dynamically stable groundwater levels flows and water quality with equitable effective and long

[0:39:51] Voice 4: term governance and management management to sustain water food and energy security

[0:39:57] Voice 4: environmental flows and groundwater dependent ecosystems infrastructure social well-being

[0:40:03] Voice 4: and local economies for current and future generations which is huge but there's a lot

[0:40:09] Voice 4: in there and it's really kind of what drives us like what's our our goal so we tried to break

[0:40:17] Voice 4: that down into more simple steps and pieces so similar studies have been done where they look

[0:40:24] Voice 4: in a very basic step in terms of water availability looking at the concept of

[0:40:30] Voice 4: aquifer stress so how much water is being used compared to how much water is available so GW

[0:40:35] Voice 4: GW Solutions has done previous studies on the islands that looked at that approach,

[0:40:41] Voice 4: and there have been other global studies of that nature.

[0:40:46] Voice 4: Researchers at University of Victoria and at Simon Fraser University

[0:40:53] Voice 4: had worked on this concept of groundwater footprint,

[0:40:57] Voice 4: which was looking at kind of a spatial level

[0:41:00] Voice 4: and also considering the contribution of groundwater to environmental flows.

[0:41:07] Voice 4: So the groundwater footprint of an aquifer would be how much water is being used

[0:41:11] Voice 4: compared to recharge less the discharge to surface water ecosystems times aquifer area.

[0:41:19] Voice 4: So it was a unitless value that reflected the relative stress on that water source.

[0:41:26] Voice 4: Some disadvantages of this approach or some observations of this approach was that it's mainly appropriate for use in unconfined aquifers.

[0:41:37] Voice 4: There was an assumption of hydraulic connection to the stream and it was based bias in terms of aquifer size.

[0:41:47] Voice 4: So we also are kind of running in or need to consider the context of groundwater regulation currently in BC.

[0:41:55] Voice 4: So, under the Water Sustainability Act, for example, the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship focused largely on groundwater licensing and licensing has focused up to date and with some exceptions, but mainly on quantity, water quantity, how much water is in the MACFER, how much has been spoken for and how much might be available for additional licenses.

[0:42:20] Voice 4: It's a first-in-time, first-in-right system, and it's still in the implementation phase.

[0:42:25] Voice 4: We're already 10 years in, but the licensing has not been fully implemented in many communities.

[0:42:33] Voice 4: There are some mechanisms under the Water Sustainability Act that look at watershed scale or act for scale planning and water objectives, and those things could be considered in that trust area.

[0:42:46] Voice 4: But mostly water quality is not considered.

[0:42:50] Voice 4: And when we're looking at monitoring to support the licensing decisions, often the number of types of monitoring locations are insufficient to really understand current stresses and state of the resource.

[0:43:04] Voice 4: source. The Drinking Water Protection Act and regulations, in contrast, really focus on the

[0:43:11] Voice 4: regulation and the safe supply of water to water supply systems. So they're looking at potable

[0:43:17] Voice 4: water quality, making sure water is safe to drink and being provided to the public in a safe manner.

[0:43:24] Voice 4: There is some, there are some mechanisms for source protection and drought planning. But in

[0:43:31] Voice 4: In general, you know, especially in the trust area where we have a large number of small water systems, there's limited monitoring requirements.

[0:43:38] Voice 4: And it's not integrated with the Water Sustainability Act.

[0:43:41] Voice 4: So there's, even though they're more recently, I think there's more of an effort to have that interplay and more of an integration.

[0:43:48] Voice 4: In general, those things operate separately, where those pieces of legislation operate separately.

[0:43:54] Voice 4: And then we come to the trust and local government, and they're the responsible for decisions that affect local zoning and land use and density.

[0:44:06] Voice 4: But again, there isn't a direct integration with Water Sustainability Act.

[0:44:11] Voice 4: But the decisions that are made in terms of land use can influence both the quality and quantity of water resources.

[0:44:19] Voice 4: resources. So part of our driver is how do we integrate water management and planning

[0:44:24] Voice 4: by defining sustainability goals and ecological thresholds that relate to both water quality

[0:44:30] Voice 4: and quantity. And that's based on a regional understanding and prioritized actions based on

[0:44:37] Voice 4: real observations and develop thresholds or limits to indicate when we've reached a point

[0:44:45] Voice 4: point where the resource is no longer being used sustainably. So I've broken down the approach in

[0:44:58] Voice 4: terms of kind of, you know, if we had our best case scenario, we would think about on the islands,

[0:45:05] Voice 4: we would think about watershed health, we would think about water quality, and we would think

[0:45:10] Voice 4: about water quantity and quality so our objective in watershed health would be to make sure that the

[0:45:18] Voice 4: natural watershed function is maintained that wetland ecology maintenance of seasonal discharge

[0:45:23] Voice 4: is is there and that there are sufficient water flows for ecological environmental flow needs

[0:45:31] Voice 4: some work has been done for example on salt spring to look at the forest cover and species and age

[0:45:38] Voice 4: age, percent impervious services, road density, and those types of indicators

[0:45:44] Voice 4: of sustainability from a watershed health point of view. And that was not directly

[0:45:48] Voice 4: included within this study, but I think that it is an important piece that should be considered

[0:45:53] Voice 4: in future. When we're thinking about water quantity, our objective would be that there

[0:46:01] Voice 4: is sufficient water quantity for residential, agricultural, commercial, and industrial needs,

[0:46:06] Voice 4: or whatever the priority land uses are for the community.

[0:46:11] Voice 4: An indicator would be that demand is less than the water that is available,

[0:46:18] Voice 4: and you'd have a large safety factor to account for scientific uncertainty.

[0:46:23] Voice 4: You'd want to make sure that the quantity available also considers the needs of ecosystems and flux of the coast,

[0:46:31] Voice 4: um that the methodology would be appropriate for use in fracture bedrock aquifers

[0:46:37] Voice 4: we'd look at groundwater trends and and look for stability or or observations in terms of trends

[0:46:44] Voice 4: in groundwater levels monitoring and that the scale of the the methodology would be appropriate

[0:46:52] Voice 4: rather than say a large aquifer where the the conditions might be highly variable that it would

[0:46:59] Voice 4: would reflect a scale where the conditions would be similar

[0:47:03] Voice 4: within a particular unit.

[0:47:05] Voice 4: In terms of freshwater quantity or quality,

[0:47:09] Voice 4: the objective would be to ensure water adequate quality

[0:47:13] Voice 4: for the different priority land uses.

[0:47:17] Voice 4: And the indicator thresholds might be

[0:47:20] Voice 4: certain water quality parameters, such as chloride,

[0:47:24] Voice 4: which could indicate water quality impacts

[0:47:27] Voice 4: from seawater intrusion.

[0:47:30] Voice 4: um nitrate bacteria or other indicators of contamination from land use

[0:47:36] Voice 4: um a change in water quality compared to the long-term background and long-term trends or

[0:47:43] Voice 4: changes over time and comparison to thresholds that could be identified for particular communities

[0:47:47] Voice 4: or areas so all of those kind of can be broken down into um for on the quantity side what we

[0:47:58] Voice 4: considered was water inputs outputs and indicators of act for health and on the quality side we

[0:48:08] Voice 4: considered focus primarily on this study on groundwater quality and indicators of act for

[0:48:15] Voice 4: health so i'll break down i'm going to break down each of these as we go through what it came down

[0:48:23] Voice 4: to in terms of our final footprint methodology was looking at water use over recharge compared

[0:48:29] Voice 4: to recharge, the two primary water quality indicators of chloride and total dissolved

[0:48:35] Voice 4: solids, and then an assessment of the different freshwater hazards. So saltwater intrusion hazard,

[0:48:41] Voice 4: the population and land use density or density of the element. So now we're going to get into

[0:48:50] Voice 4: the gabriola case study so gabriola is uh as as we know is located in um nanaimo or across from

[0:49:02] Voice 4: nanaimo um there's about 2700 with more than 2700 registered wells on the island there's uh two

[0:49:09] Voice 4: match uh fractured sedimentary bedrock aquifers they're mainly composed of shale and sandstone

[0:49:17] Voice 4: there is a limited supply and the well yields tend to be low to moderate. Recharges from diffuse

[0:49:25] Voice 4: precipitation over the island footprint and also focused recharge in geologic features such as

[0:49:31] Voice 4: faults. And the water sources of freshwater lens overlying saline water and it's vulnerable to

[0:49:39] Voice 4: contamination because it's largely unconfined for system. There's the population is around

[0:49:46] Voice 4: 4,500 people and it increases in summer and there's around 2,900 land parcels that are non-vacuum

[0:49:58] Voice 4: and with a large number of wells as I mentioned. So here's a map that shows water sources on the

[0:50:05] Voice 4: island. The red dots represent water supply systems. The red triangles represent springs

[0:50:11] Voice 4: which could indicate locations of groundwater discharge.

[0:50:15] Voice 4: The blue dots represent wells

[0:50:18] Voice 4: and these turquoise dots represent monitoring locations.

[0:50:26] Voice 4: In terms of surface water,

[0:50:28] Voice 4: there's 17 watersheds on the island.

[0:50:30] Voice 4: Most of the streams are ephemeral.

[0:50:33] Voice 4: And in terms of our analysis,

[0:50:36] Voice 4: surface water is not a significant source

[0:50:38] Voice 4: of potable water on the island.

[0:50:40] Voice 4: And of course, watersheds and surface water sources are vulnerable as well to land use, affecting drainage patterns and also climate change.

[0:50:50] Voice 4: So from the Garbiolo Water Survey, the community members indicated that the majority of water sources or a large proportion of water is supplied from drilled wells.

[0:51:05] Voice 4: But rainwater catchment as either a primary or secondary source of water is also important, with more than a third of folks indicating that they also incorporate rainwater catchment as their water supply.

[0:51:20] Voice 4: high. So bulk water hauling is a source to a smaller number of parcels. And it's in terms of

[0:51:31] Voice 4: the proportion, it's difficult to say, but it is an important water source, particularly in areas

[0:51:38] Voice 4: where it's not possible to drill a well, such as in very close parcels close to the foreshore.

[0:51:44] Voice 4: and water is supplied from both on-island water haulers and off-island water haulers.

[0:51:51] Voice 4: Most of the water supplied is for domestic purposes,

[0:52:00] Voice 4: including irrigation of small gardens.

[0:52:04] Voice 4: A small number of people indicate that they run out regularly,

[0:52:09] Voice 4: but most people indicate that they have sufficient quantity of water for their needs

[0:52:15] Voice 4: and sufficient water of good quality.

[0:52:20] Voice 4: Only a small number indicate that the water has issues, including saline taste.

[0:52:26] Voice 4: Most of the groundwater development on the island has occurred in the 1970s to the 1990s,

[0:52:32] Voice 4: and in recent years, much smaller numbers of new wells are being drilled.

[0:52:36] Voice 4: So that kind of indicates that any management approach that we take needs to deal with existing use rather than things like drilling advisories or drilling restrictions, which are not going to have a big impact on the existing users.

[0:52:56] Voice 4: Groundwater flows from the center of the island and toward the coast with very shallow levels

[0:53:06] Voice 4: in the coastal margins.

[0:53:09] Voice 4: So that just shows us that in terms of the coastal area, a very shallow freshwater lens

[0:53:18] Voice 4: exists above sea level.

[0:53:20] Voice 4: In terms of the island as a whole, it has two separate aquifers, but the aquifer mapping is not useful as a unit to evaluate water usage or any of the freshwater footprint components.

[0:53:40] Voice 4: So the primary units that we use to evaluate different conditions in different areas were based on 11 groundwater management regions,

[0:53:49] Voice 4: which had been established in early work by Ministry of Environment in the 1970s,

[0:53:53] Voice 4: which were based on watershed boundaries and flow regions.

[0:54:01] Voice 4: So essentially, a groundwater region represents an area in which conditions are likely to be fairly similar

[0:54:07] Voice 4: or in which case we can make a comparison between the areas so looking at the first component of the

[0:54:18] Voice 4: freshwater footprint which is the water quality quantity side so in terms of the hazards that

[0:54:24] Voice 4: we're trying to consider within a freshwater footprint assessment we want to we've considered

[0:54:29] Voice 4: considered what happens if we or one hazard could be demand exceeding supply.

[0:54:38] Voice 4: That could result in deepening of groundwater levels or seasonal deficits. So

[0:54:43] Voice 4: periods of time when aquifer storage is not sufficient to supply the water use during that

[0:54:50] Voice 4: ice season. Of course climate change and drought is a big factor in this area and we're anticipating

[0:54:59] Voice 4: that the climate change will result in both the changes in the timing and the amount of recharge

[0:55:05] Voice 4: occurring. It will increase evapotranspiration and there will be a lot much longer dry season

[0:55:12] Voice 4: so that's something that needs to be considered in long-range planning and if we have a deepening

[0:55:19] Voice 4: of groundwater levels below sea level there is the potential impact of seawater intrusion which

[0:55:24] Voice 4: which reduces the quantity of water that is available,

[0:55:28] Voice 4: of freshwater that is available for use,

[0:55:30] Voice 4: as well as the quality, which we'll get into later.

[0:55:32] Voice 4: So focusing in on the water use versus recharge components

[0:55:38] Voice 4: of the freshwater footprint,

[0:55:43] Voice 4: we took an approach which developed a water budget,

[0:55:49] Voice 4: which began with the gridded water balance model.

[0:55:52] Voice 4: So that considered precipitation inputs into the island, losses to evaporation, and the amount of water that would be available as a surplus that could be available to recharge the local aquifers.

[0:56:09] Voice 4: so the if there was a surplus then a portion would recharge the aquifer and a portion would

[0:56:19] Voice 4: result in runoff to local streams the other components of the water balance included

[0:56:27] Voice 4: water usage versus demand and the groundwater recharge potential and that combined to look at

[0:56:35] Voice 4: the total groundwater availability or usage versus recharge. The groundwater recharge potential

[0:56:45] Voice 4: considered, so if you had precipitation coming in from the land surface, what factors would

[0:56:51] Voice 4: influence whether water is going to infiltrate into the ground or run off? For example, if you

[0:56:57] Voice 4: have a very high slope, the water is more apt to run off quickly compared to a gradual slope,

[0:57:03] Voice 4: which where water would be allowed to accumulate and infiltrate land cover is an important

[0:57:09] Voice 4: consideration so that would be things like impervious cover if a land is vegetated if it's

[0:57:16] Voice 4: bare rock we looked at indicators of flow accumulation so greenness and areas where

[0:57:27] Voice 4: where there was a permanent wetness on the landscape

[0:57:30] Voice 4: based on Landsat interpretation

[0:57:34] Voice 4: and looked at preferential areas

[0:57:37] Voice 4: for groundwater recharge and discharge.

[0:57:39] Voice 4: So looking at the depth of the groundwater

[0:57:41] Voice 4: and how that might influence infiltration

[0:57:44] Voice 4: and of course, superficial materials.

[0:57:46] Voice 4: So if you have organic permeable soil

[0:57:50] Voice 4: versus a clay soil.

[0:57:56] Voice 4: Putting all of these together

[0:57:57] Voice 4: And of course, I should point out that the details are provided in a full report that is available on the Island Stress website.

[0:58:06] Voice 4: So I'm breezing over some of them now.

[0:58:09] Voice 4: So if people are interested, they can look at the report itself.

[0:58:12] Voice 4: But in general, this map shows the areas where groundwater recharge is likely to occur or less likely to occur.

[0:58:23] Voice 4: So the yellow indicating areas of preferential groundwater discharge, and the deeper blue colors indicating preferential areas of groundwater recharge on the island.

[0:58:37] Voice 4: In terms of water use, previous studies had used various approaches, but a common approach was to only use the presence of wells,

[0:58:48] Voice 4: in a registered well, in groundwater wells and aquifers database.

[0:58:54] Voice 4: But it's recognized that groundwater wells and aquifers database may have errors in where the wells are located and also unregistered wells.

[0:59:04] Voice 4: So we took a more comprehensive look that looked at the full land use, as well as well information, surface water and groundwater licensing information,

[0:59:14] Voice 4: information, inventory of non-domestic groundwater users throughout the island, looking at local

[0:59:21] Voice 4: directories, interviews and information provided from local contacts, and land use designations

[0:59:33] Voice 4: from the BC Assessment Authority, so where lands were vacant or non-vacant and likely

[0:59:42] Voice 4: to have a water source or water usage associated with it.

[0:59:48] Voice 4: So here is the different lots

[0:59:52] Voice 4: within each of the different groundwater management areas.

[0:59:57] Voice 4: We also looked at peaking factors.

[1:00:00] Voice 4: and water usage patterns so like seasonal water usage patterns based on detailed information

[1:00:05] Voice 4: from similar water supply systems in the regional district of Nanaimo so we had long-term water

[1:00:14] Voice 4: usage data from water systems so that we could develop an understanding of usage patterns and

[1:00:20] Voice 4: those are based on similar types of systems either in fracture bedrock aquifer settings and

[1:00:26] Voice 4: and coastal areas.

[1:00:30] Voice 4: So we took a precautionary approach

[1:00:32] Voice 4: in terms of recognizing that water use on Gabriel

[1:00:36] Voice 4: would likely be less than in some regions

[1:00:41] Voice 4: because people are generally fairly aware of water issues

[1:00:45] Voice 4: and water usage would be limited also by wild productivity.

[1:00:52] Voice 4: So in terms of monthly water use,

[1:00:54] Voice 4: use. There's just a plot that shows the total water usage, and you see that similar peak

[1:00:59] Voice 4: in water usage in July and August annually. And then showing that residential use was a form of

[1:01:09] Voice 4: the primary volumes of water demand, followed by agricultural use. The agricultural use

[1:01:20] Voice 4: use component was based on assessment of agricultural parcels designated as agriculture

[1:01:28] Voice 4: under VC assessment authority data, as well as ALR mapping, and then interpretation of

[1:01:36] Voice 4: aerial photos to try to estimate area of irrigated area. In general, we assumed that only 10%

[1:01:46] Voice 4: of each agricultural parcel was irrigated and then used the BC Agricultural Water Use Calculator

[1:01:55] Voice 4: to estimate the water demand that would be associated with the parcels. In terms of

[1:02:03] Voice 4: industrial commercial use, it's a much lower quantity compared to other users, and that would

[1:02:10] Voice 4: be mainly associated with your small water systems, stores, institutions, and such on the island.

[1:02:20] Voice 4: So here's a map of groundwater use and you can see that this is in units of millimeters so

[1:02:28] Voice 4: the water balance is done in millimeters and then converted over for our water use per parcel was

[1:02:36] Voice 4: was converted to millimeters for comparison to the recharge and precipitation components.

[1:02:44] Voice 4: So you can see that very high water use was found in, say, I don't know if you can see

[1:02:51] Voice 4: my cursor, I hope you can, in the central commercial areas such as on the eastern or

[1:03:02] Voice 4: western part of the island and you can see in areas of high lot density a higher water demand

[1:03:09] Voice 4: compared to large parcels in the center of the island that are designated as either as parks or

[1:03:15] Voice 4: undeveloped areas in terms of groundwater recharge the in quantity you can see that this map

[1:03:24] Voice 4: represents it mimics the groundwater recharge potential mapping with higher quantities of

[1:03:31] Voice 4: groundwater recharge in the central part of the island and much lower quantities of groundwater

[1:03:37] Voice 4: recharge towards coastal in general toward coastal areas and then comparing those two

[1:03:45] Voice 4: groundwater use versus groundwater recharge aquifer stress varied from low to very extreme

[1:03:53] Voice 4: where more than 40 percent of available recharge was being utilized and you can see that there's a

[1:03:59] Voice 4: high degree of variability and with very dense subdivisions showing higher quantities of use

[1:04:10] Voice 4: compared to recharge and but large central areas having very low water stress so this really

[1:04:18] Voice 4: highlights the need to kind of look at it from this point of view of a you know lots or or smaller

[1:04:24] Voice 4: smaller management regions, because if this were to be summarized for the island as a whole,

[1:04:30] Voice 4: one might say, oh, the aquifer is at a low water stress. But you can see that there is that spatial

[1:04:37] Voice 4: variability in the conditions. In terms of hydraulic connectivity between surface and

[1:04:45] Voice 4: groundwater sources, we weren't able to incorporate discharge to surface water environments,

[1:04:53] Voice 4: partly because there are no long-term flow data on the island and that is a really important

[1:05:00] Voice 4: component that needs to be considered for future studies and I think is a good inspiration or

[1:05:07] Voice 4: hopefully can engender some ideas for how that component could be how the proper monitoring

[1:05:16] Voice 4: could be put in place to try to collect data

[1:05:19] Voice 4: that could be used to assess that.

[1:05:21] Voice 4: But we did assess locations where,

[1:05:25] Voice 4: we use a spatial methodology to assess locations

[1:05:27] Voice 4: where there was likely to be hydraulic connectivity

[1:05:30] Voice 4: between surface and groundwater sources.

[1:05:32] Voice 4: So where there's red squares

[1:05:35] Voice 4: along the surface water stream,

[1:05:39] Voice 4: that indicates that there is a likely hydraulic connection

[1:05:42] Voice 4: where the stream is a source of water to the aquifer and the green components are locations

[1:05:51] Voice 4: where the stream is likely to be receiving groundwater discharge. And so I think that

[1:05:57] Voice 4: those could be focused in on areas for additional monitoring. So I've talked about, so we're

[1:06:06] Voice 4: thinking about what are those indicators that are on the right track in terms of water

[1:06:10] Voice 4: sustainability and gabriel is very lucky to have a fairly robust monitoring network so

[1:06:19] Voice 4: there are four provincial observation wells and two regional district of enamo volunteer

[1:06:25] Voice 4: observation wells so six wells within an island and although that's not ideal and there are some

[1:06:31] Voice 4: gaps in terms of where these are located it's much better than many of the islands in the trust area

[1:06:39] Voice 4: So here's the distribution of monitoring locations and pointing out that in the sands region to the north and in this very highly developed region to the northwest of the island, there isn't any active monitoring.

[1:06:57] Voice 4: But when we look at the long-term groundwater trends, we do not see any significant long-term declines for the currently active stations.

[1:07:12] Voice 4: Although we can see some seasonal variability, and I'll get into some of the observations, specific observations.

[1:07:21] Voice 4: So this record shows that this is for observation 197 along North Road, and it shows that there may be a long-term water level decline, or there could have been a change in monitoring level.

[1:07:40] Voice 4: But in general, the range between seasonal conditions is fairly similar over the long term.

[1:07:53] Voice 4: But you can see that from when the well was initially monitored to current, that there has been a decline.

[1:08:01] Voice 4: And that is considered to be associated with changes in climate and potentially land use.

[1:08:11] Voice 4: um in aquifer 196 we see a similar um fluctuation and range of fluctuation between winter

[1:08:22] Voice 4: and summer groundwater levels and there is no long-term decline in water level within

[1:08:30] Voice 4: uh that aquifer so again these wells are in located in relatively undeveloped areas

[1:08:36] Voice 4: areas and show that the, don't show any significant, you know, concerning trends.

[1:08:46] Voice 4: Volunteer observation well number seven shows some of the, what we can see in terms of seasonal

[1:08:51] Voice 4: variability. So for example, you can see that in some, so the groundwater monitoring, just to kind

[1:08:59] Voice 4: of orient ourselves, I guess, the water levels are shown by the colored lines. And then you can

[1:09:06] Voice 4: see that on the vertical axis is the depth of groundwater so in the summer water levels are

[1:09:14] Voice 4: going down on the y-axis so you can see that in some years you can have the groundwater

[1:09:20] Voice 4: levels go very deep in the aquifer but in the in terms of winter conditions the groundwater

[1:09:26] Voice 4: levels return to a similar level every year so that kind of shows you what can happen

[1:09:34] Voice 4: and be happening in wells that are not being monitored so we may have some years where

[1:09:38] Voice 4: groundwater levels deepen um during the summer period but hopefully they're replenishing so

[1:09:44] Voice 4: we need to continue monitoring and uh but in terms of monitoring on the on gabriel and island itself

[1:09:50] Voice 4: there's nothing to flag that says we're not um using the water sustainability um in terms of

[1:09:57] Voice 4: water quality um we'll get into that so what are the some of the hazards that we might uh be

[1:10:04] Voice 4: be considering so of course in a groundwater source you could have natural contaminants such

[1:10:10] Voice 4: as iron manganese and fluoride that affect potability and the pleasantness of water for

[1:10:16] Voice 4: drinking contamination can occur from both diffuse or non-point sources as well as point sources like

[1:10:24] Voice 4: contamination contaminated sites non-point sources could include septic system discharges

[1:10:31] Voice 4: is agricultural waste that leads to increasing concentrations of nitrate, septic systems

[1:10:41] Voice 4: can be linked to bacteria or pathogens, and phosphorus is a nutrient source.

[1:10:47] Voice 4: And of course, we want to think about seawater intrusion.

[1:10:51] Voice 4: So are we seeing an increase in salinity compared to background or long-term historical levels?

[1:10:57] Voice 4: And that is an important indicator of sustainability.

[1:10:59] Voice 4: So to try to assess current conditions of water quality on the island, we did a robust, very comprehensive look at all of the available water quality that we could get.

[1:11:14] Voice 4: A really important source of water quality data came from the Regional District of Nanaimo Drinking Water and Watershed Protection Program.

[1:11:22] Voice 4: The RDM provided us with data from their own operated water systems, as well as data provided with the permission of well owners from the rural well owner water testing rebate program.

[1:11:35] Voice 4: So that just shows was very illustrative of how valuable those rebate programs are to both individual well owners who were provided with information on water quality in their wells,

[1:11:48] Voice 4: as well as to researchers working in the area who were provided with a source of data.

[1:11:58] Voice 4: Another source of information was from water system monitoring,

[1:12:03] Voice 4: so small water systems across the island who had water quality testing

[1:12:08] Voice 4: as part of their operational permits through Island Health,

[1:12:11] Voice 4: and that was obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

[1:12:14] Voice 4: And then we had more data from the environmental monitoring system, the provincial monitoring database from sampling that had been conducted by the ministry in private wells and observation wells.

[1:12:27] Voice 4: And in terms of parameters that were assessed, we looked at general chemistry and physical parameters such as ions, anions or negatively charged ions, nutrients, metals and bacteria.

[1:12:40] Voice 4: And so we had a total of 540 total samples and over 21,000 different rounders or tests.

[1:12:54] Voice 4: This slide just gives a general overview of the number of samples that exceeded drinking water guidelines.

[1:13:05] Voice 4: lines um so out of a total or one there's a couple things to to pull from this and i know it's a lot

[1:13:15] Voice 4: of detail to for a presentation but um in terms of bacteria a large number of samples had both

[1:13:24] Voice 4: total coliform bacteria and fecal coliform bacteria and total coliform and fecal coliform

[1:13:30] Voice 4: Well, total coliform bacteria are present in shallow soil and surface water sources, whereas fecal coliform bacteria come from sources from contamination from fecal waste.

[1:13:43] Voice 4: And so the large number, more than 34% of water samples that have fecal coliform indicate that the wells on the island may be vulnerable to contamination from both surface water or contaminants such as from septic systems.

[1:14:00] Voice 4: But this is less an aquifer problem and more of a well problem. So based on results of studies in other similar areas, it was found that wells that do not have a bentonite clay surface seal surrounding the well casing, such as older wells that were constructed before that was a requirement of well construction, tended to be more vulnerable to bacterial contamination.

[1:14:28] Voice 4: And so I think that's the take-home message from that sample result.

[1:14:32] Voice 4: And it's important in terms of well husbandry and maintenance, something that the well owners should consider in terms of understanding the vulnerability of their water sources.

[1:14:42] Voice 4: The other things that can be pulled out in terms of observations of sources that water quality concerns were the large number of wells that had fluoride that was above drinking water guidelines.

[1:15:02] Voice 4: lines so approximately 10 percent of the samples and also manganese and iron being fairly common

[1:15:13] Voice 4: with it as a metals present in the groundwater manganese is both an aesthetic and health-related

[1:15:22] Voice 4: concern and iron is more of an aesthetic concern which affects the potability of water or how its

[1:15:28] Voice 4: taste um thinking about the great gabriella groundwater survey um kind of jumping back to

[1:15:39] Voice 4: that for a moment um people were asked to indicate what the the water topic the level of importance

[1:15:46] Voice 4: for the different water topics and i thought it was interesting that rainwater for a groundwater

[1:15:52] Voice 4: independent region rainwater harvesting was the highest in terms of the weighted average of

[1:15:58] Voice 4: people's level of importance, and saltwater intrusion was one of the least. But as a

[1:16:03] Voice 4: researcher who's worked in this area for a long time, it's my observation that seawater intrusion

[1:16:12] Voice 4: is a significant concern on the islands and needs to be managed more carefully and more attention

[1:16:19] Voice 4: being drawn to it. So what is seawater intrusion? Well, seawater intrusion is basically the mixing

[1:16:26] Voice 4: between fresh and saline water in an aquifer so in coastal aquifers that can you can have

[1:16:35] Voice 4: groundwater that is higher in chloride or salinity for various reasons one can be due to

[1:16:43] Voice 4: active processes such as seawater mixing in with freshwater source so through the pumping of wells

[1:16:51] Voice 4: an active process of pumping in the saline water that deepening of the groundwater levels

[1:16:57] Voice 4: or drawing in saline water from the coast.

[1:17:01] Voice 4: But in this region, we also have this glacial history where the islands were in at the end

[1:17:07] Voice 4: of the last glacial period, the islands were covered in much deeper, ocean levels were

[1:17:14] Voice 4: much higher.

[1:17:14] Voice 4: And so relic seawater has been trapped in formation in some areas.

[1:17:19] Voice 4: areas and so sometimes where we see elevated concentrations of salts it can become be due to

[1:17:28] Voice 4: accessing fractures that have that relative sea water or else it can be due to mature groundwater

[1:17:37] Voice 4: that has been in contact with marine derived sedimentary rock so water has been sitting in

[1:17:42] Voice 4: the aquifer it's been dissolving minerals from the rock and increases in concentration of

[1:17:49] Voice 4: salinity as a result of that so salt water intrusion or saline intrusion are although

[1:17:58] Voice 4: they're different processes they both can negatively impact the potability of water

[1:18:05] Voice 4: and its ability or its usefulness so it doesn't um in general when we looked at regional based

[1:18:14] Voice 4: studies. Chloride, which is considered a very good indicator of intrusion, is generally less

[1:18:21] Voice 4: than 150 milligrams per liter. If you mix in 2% or less of seawater, that can reduce

[1:18:30] Voice 4: water's potability. And if you mix in as little as 4% of seawater into fresh water,

[1:18:36] Voice 4: the water may be unusable for many purposes.

[1:18:42] Voice 4: So we're very concerned about seawater intrusion because once

[1:18:47] Voice 4: salinization of an aquifer occurs, the change can be very long term.

[1:18:51] Voice 4: It can take many, many years for the natural replenishment

[1:18:54] Voice 4: and recharge to freshen the aquifer again.

[1:19:00] Voice 4: Using water that's high in total dissolved solids and chlorides

[1:19:04] Voice 4: is corrosive to pipes and fixtures so it increases our cost of operation and it it also increases

[1:19:13] Voice 4: cost for well maintenance and or you may need to replace components of a well like a pump

[1:19:19] Voice 4: if you're chlorinating well so water so if you're running a small water system and you're

[1:19:24] Voice 4: chlorinating the water um you can have higher trihalomethane formation from an interaction

[1:19:33] Voice 4: between the chlorine and bromides in the the saline in the saline water under the water

[1:19:43] Voice 4: sustainability act it's not permitted to operate a well that causes saline or seawater intrusion

[1:19:49] Voice 4: and affects the quality and use of the groundwater.

[1:19:52] Voice 4: So that's an important component.

[1:19:55] Voice 4: And then alternative water sources, such as desalinization, are really costly.

[1:20:00] Voice 4: They take a lot of energy, and they're linked to other environmental harms,

[1:20:04] Voice 4: such as you would have to dispose of the brine solution that is created.

[1:20:09] Voice 4: And of course, under climate change scenarios,

[1:20:12] Voice 4: we have increased risks of storm surges and sea level rise

[1:20:17] Voice 4: that's going to affect the vulnerability of coastal areas to seawater intrusion as well as

[1:20:23] Voice 4: increase the human caused pieces such as the potential for drilling of wells deeper into the

[1:20:30] Voice 4: saline freshwater interface over pumping of wells and changes in amount of recharge that's coming

[1:20:37] Voice 4: into the aquifer so for all of those reasons we want to maintain that replenishment of recharge

[1:20:44] Voice 4: charge and we want to minimize overuse of saline or freshwater in coastal areas.

[1:20:52] Voice 4: So thinking about those indicators in a freshwater footprint, the following operational

[1:21:01] Voice 4: thresholds have been suggested as an indicator of where seawater intrusion has occurred. So if

[1:21:09] Voice 4: water that is pumped from a well is higher with 150 milligrams per liter chloride or higher,

[1:21:14] Voice 4: or has an electrical conductivity of a thousand microsiemens per centimeter or more or total

[1:21:23] Voice 4: dissolved solids of 700 milligrams per liter or more then it may be impacted by seawater intrusion

[1:21:31] Voice 4: these thresholds are precautionary so there's no legislation or anything like that that says you

[1:21:37] Voice 4: You can't operate a well that produces water of this quality or worse, but it is an indicator

[1:21:44] Voice 4: that one should take a look at what is the potential cause, if that's the water, the

[1:21:51] Voice 4: quality of the water that is being produced by a particular well.

[1:21:54] Voice 4: In terms of drinking water limits, chloride has a limit of 250 milligrams per liter, and

[1:22:01] Voice 4: above this, you would have a noticeable salty taste to the water.

[1:22:05] Voice 4: and for irrigation of course some plants have more or less sensitivity to chloride in the water

[1:22:14] Voice 4: and the BC has an ambient water quality guideline for irrigation of 100 milligrams per liter chloride

[1:22:19] Voice 4: so an interesting thing has happened in terms of when we look at the statistics of wells drilled

[1:22:27] Voice 4: drilled on Gabriola. So if we compile the all of the statistics by decade, so we saw that plot

[1:22:36] Voice 4: earlier that showed that in the 1970s and the 19 to 1990s, most of the wells on the island were

[1:22:42] Voice 4: drilled. But we do see that if we look at it by decade, that there has been a general trend in

[1:22:51] Voice 4: increasing well depths of the increasing depths of wells being drilled and there's a greater range

[1:22:58] Voice 4: in the depth of wells being drilled so that could indicate that people are needing to go deeper

[1:23:07] Voice 4: in order to find a usable quantity of water or it could also reflect changes in the technology

[1:23:13] Voice 4: of drilling and also water demand so more water being sought for an individual source but it is

[1:23:23] Voice 4: illustrative and then you can see that the trend the mean these are box plots that show the maximum

[1:23:29] Voice 4: and mean of this the line between the two green colors the mean depth of wells has increased over

[1:23:40] Voice 4: When we look at the so I'm going to show a bunch of the water quality data now that we show it spatially over the islands.

[1:23:50] Voice 4: So each of these dots represent a place where we have water quality value.

[1:23:55] Voice 4: So you can see that there's a range in this case in chloride and that where we see high chloride

[1:24:01] Voice 4: Chloride tends to be within areas near the coast and in areas where there's, where we saw from earlier maps, that there's a high density of development.

[1:24:13] Voice 4: development so um the red dots represent values the orangey dots represent values of chloride

[1:24:22] Voice 4: above 150 which is our operational threshold for sea water intrusion and the red dots represent

[1:24:28] Voice 4: locations where water quality exceeds a drinking water guideline and then the blue dots are those

[1:24:34] Voice 4: below the guideline with bigger dots slightly higher chloride so regionally we see that there

[1:24:43] Voice 4: that some regions have higher chloride, but in general, on average, the majority of water

[1:24:50] Voice 4: from samples analyzed on the island was below 150 milligrams per liter chloride.

[1:25:00] Voice 4: But we see that some regions have higher average chloride concentrations like

[1:25:05] Voice 4: Descanso Bay and Northumberland Channel region. In terms of total dissolved solids,

[1:25:14] Voice 4: We see a fairly similar pattern with areas close to the coast and areas where there is a high density of development having generally higher levels.

[1:25:26] Voice 4: But we also show some inland areas that have higher TDS.

[1:25:30] Voice 4: Yes. And so that shows or suggests that there's factors other than direct seawater attrition that are influencing total dissolved solids or the mineral content, essentially, of the groundwater in the sands.

[1:25:46] Voice 4: And again, we see similar regional patterns with most of the water or all of the average

[1:25:56] Voice 4: concentrations or median concentrations well below the operational threshold, but slightly

[1:26:03] Voice 4: higher values in some regions such as this council bridge.

[1:26:09] Voice 4: In terms of fluoride, we see a wide distribution of water quality across the island and we

[1:26:15] Voice 4: see areas both inland and coastal with concentrations above drinking water limits.

[1:26:24] Voice 4: That higher chloride concentration could be associated with potential health concerns

[1:26:30] Voice 4: and that was highlighted in previous studies. The concerns with relation to chloride in

[1:26:37] Voice 4: Gabriela Island groundwater was highlighted in earlier studies such as Earl and Krog completed

[1:26:43] Voice 4: And we did receive data from that study as well to incorporate with ours.

[1:26:51] Voice 4: And in terms of, again, those regional patterns, you see that some regions have much higher fluoride on average compared to some areas that have very low fluoride concentrations.

[1:27:05] Voice 4: So we're kind of beg to wonder, you know, what is, is there a pattern to this?

[1:27:14] Voice 4: Similar to manganese, most of the sites are of good quality and below drinking water guidelines,

[1:27:21] Voice 4: but there are some smaller number of sites, particularly more inland and some coastal sites that had higher manganese.

[1:27:32] Voice 4: Nitrate, in comparison to manganese, fluoride, and all solids that might indicate are natural contaminants

[1:27:40] Voice 4: that um can indicate water quality um from sort of environmental concerns nitrate is an indicator

[1:27:51] Voice 4: usually of land use concerns so nitrate comes from septic discharges and um agricultural waste

[1:28:01] Voice 4: as an example so and drinking water above that can cause some health harms and in general water

[1:28:12] Voice 4: quality on the island the nitrate was very low although there were some locations that had higher

[1:28:18] Voice 4: nitrate concentrations and the regional patterns are slightly different in comparison to the other

[1:28:26] Voice 4: water quality parameters but in general the the nitrate is very low um and well below drinking

[1:28:34] Voice 4: water guidelines and so that was a really important one because you know lots of folks think that um

[1:28:39] Voice 4: you know had concern about um septic density and potential impacts in terms of nitrate

[1:28:44] Voice 4: concentrations and that did not look like a big concern based on our current act present

[1:28:51] Voice 4: present, based on our water quality summary.

[1:28:54] Voice 4: So after now that we've seen some of the water quality patterns, going back to our mapping

[1:29:02] Voice 4: that looked at groundwater levels below sea level, we can see or below ground, groundwater

[1:29:12] Voice 4: depth below ground, yes, you can see that some areas where there was water quality,

[1:29:18] Voice 4: which had higher dds higher fluoride were areas where the groundwater table is deeper

[1:29:25] Voice 4: so that shows that it's probably um this process of accessing groundwater from deeper

[1:29:34] Voice 4: fractures containing mature groundwater that is having impact on water quality

[1:29:39] Voice 4: and wells on the island in addition to um coastal processes affecting sea water intrusion

[1:29:45] Voice 4: um another thing that we looked at was the depth of the saltwater interface so

[1:29:53] Voice 4: um we when we think about water availability that fresh water

[1:30:00] Voice 4: lens that is available below which there is a saline water. We wanted to try to estimate

[1:30:07] Voice 4: how deep that transition between the fresh and the saline water was below ground. And we

[1:30:14] Voice 4: used a methodology that considers groundwater quality and was validated based on the water

[1:30:23] Voice 4: quality results that we observed and it's highly dependent on groundwater level so as we pump

[1:30:30] Voice 4: groundwater down then that interface comes up closer to the surface so thinking about that

[1:30:39] Voice 4: freshwater lens is pushing the saline water down if we reduce the depth of the freshwater lens

[1:30:44] Voice 4: the water that transition between saline and freshwater will come upward so you can see that

[1:30:51] Voice 4: But in some coastal areas, in particular Sogo Bay and Sands

[1:30:57] Voice 4: region in the northwest of the island,

[1:31:02] Voice 4: that depth to that saline interface

[1:31:06] Voice 4: is very close to ground.

[1:31:09] Voice 4: And so it really shows the need to manage pumping and well

[1:31:18] Voice 4: drilling in those types of areas.

[1:31:19] Voice 4: the saltwater hazard zones were then developed based on this mapping and the water quality

[1:31:28] Voice 4: summary that basically created zones along the island along the edge of the island so rather

[1:31:37] Voice 4: than looking at sort of the detail of pumping or or that sort of thing there were thresholds or

[1:31:42] Voice 4: zones that were based on the depth to the freshwater saltwater interface with three

[1:31:50] Voice 4: three indicating a higher and higher level hazard, and one indicating a lower level of hazard.

[1:31:55] Voice 4: So you can see how this kind of all interconnects with this sort of example within the northwest

[1:32:03] Voice 4: part of the island. So the upper map shows water quality, interpolated water quality,

[1:32:09] Voice 4: based on sample results. So you can see that there are some inland areas with

[1:32:14] Voice 4: with higher chloride concentrations,

[1:32:18] Voice 4: and those form zones of higher chloride.

[1:32:21] Voice 4: You could see in the second map,

[1:32:24] Voice 4: the depth of the freshwater-saltwater interface.

[1:32:27] Voice 4: And then down below,

[1:32:28] Voice 4: you can see the cross-sectional view of the island.

[1:32:32] Voice 4: So if we were to cut the island along its axis vertically,

[1:32:38] Voice 4: we can see sort of conceptually

[1:32:42] Voice 4: that there's that interface to the saline water and that the wells could be drilled both into the

[1:32:52] Voice 4: shallow zone and also down deeper into that saline zone so if we're operating wells that are drilled

[1:32:58] Voice 4: into that deeper saline zone that's where we're going to run into water quality problems and that

[1:33:03] Voice 4: can affect not only that individual well but also multiple wells surrounding it so combining all of

[1:33:12] Voice 4: the different fresh freshwater footprint criteria we came up with this complete hazard map where

[1:33:20] Voice 4: we've used very bright colors to be able to highlight the differences between the areas

[1:33:24] Voice 4: and we see that in the areas of the northwest of the island there's a very high relative

[1:33:30] Voice 4: freshwater footprint to high to very high and whereas in the central and southeastern part of

[1:33:40] Voice 4: the island we have more moderate low or very low fresh water footprint. In terms of regional summary

[1:33:51] Voice 4: you can see that the saltwater intrusion hazard was very high in some regions but then

[1:33:59] Voice 4: you might see some areas with low saltwater intrusion hazard but higher hazard in relation

[1:34:10] Voice 4: relation to groundwater usage versus recharge.

[1:34:14] Voice 4: So the combined hazard footprint ended up as a 1 to 5 scale with some areas showing

[1:34:24] Voice 4: very high hazard footprint and others showing relatively low.

[1:34:28] Voice 4: So, to conclude, I know it's a lot to take in, but we incorporated criteria in relation to aquifer stress, groundwater use, compared to recharge.

[1:34:46] Voice 4: We looked at long-term levels and monitoring level trends.

[1:34:49] Voice 4: We looked at population and lot density and saltwater intrusion hazard based on the depth of the saltwater interface.

[1:34:55] Voice 4: and looked at groundwater quality indicators including chloride and total dissolved solid

[1:35:02] Voice 4: solids which could in that indicate where fresh water was present or where there could be mixing

[1:35:11] Voice 4: from seawater intrusion or mixing of deeper mineralized water sources. In general the

[1:35:18] Voice 4: groundwater monitoring trends are stable or showing moderate declines although there is

[1:35:22] Voice 4: There is seasonal stress evident in some sources, such as deepening of summer groundwater levels,

[1:35:29] Voice 4: which is variable between years.

[1:35:33] Voice 4: We did a comprehensive overview of the water quality across the island with over 540 samples

[1:35:41] Voice 4: and showed that groundwater quality on the island is overall very good and has lower

[1:35:47] Voice 4: concentrations of nitrate.

[1:35:49] Voice 4: But fluoride and total dissolved solids vary by region and are linked to those processes

[1:35:54] Voice 4: we talked about, including accessing mature groundwater and seawater nutrition processes.

[1:36:01] Voice 4: In terms of recommendations, monitoring networks, well, we showed that we need to have some

[1:36:08] Voice 4: more monitoring in the northwest part of the island and in areas of high groundwater development.

[1:36:15] Voice 4: That comes as no surprise for most people.

[1:36:18] Voice 4: uh i think a really important part is the need to support small water systems to implement or

[1:36:24] Voice 4: enhance operational monitoring and reporting so many of the small water systems do not monitor

[1:36:30] Voice 4: their groundwater levels they may not monitor their groundwater usage and that's a really

[1:36:34] Voice 4: important thing for them as an operational guide and also in general to show long-term trends and

[1:36:42] Voice 4: and combine that data to be able to look at it on an island-wide basis.

[1:36:49] Voice 4: We also highlighted that the surface water hydrometric stations are lacking.

[1:36:55] Voice 4: There's no long-term surface water monitoring on the island.

[1:36:59] Voice 4: And that could, you know, local volunteers,

[1:37:02] Voice 4: through local volunteers or provincial or regional monitoring programs,

[1:37:09] Voice 4: bringing monitoring to the island would be really important.

[1:37:13] Voice 4: for the surface water side. We really think there needs to be better data sharing and

[1:37:19] Voice 4: data available for decision making, including water levels and quantity usage, so that we

[1:37:26] Voice 4: don't have to take such a convoluted way to figure out where water is being used and how much.

[1:37:33] Voice 4: And a big take-home message was the Water Sustainability Act has not really been

[1:37:37] Voice 4: implemented on the island although it's difficult to say because the reporting information from

[1:37:45] Voice 4: or the inventories of license applications from the province is somewhat incomplete we documented

[1:37:53] Voice 4: over 60 non-domestic groundwater users and those appear mainly to be unlicensed

[1:38:00] Voice 4: and um i think that's a really important message that needs to that folks need to apply for their

[1:38:06] Voice 4: licenses and that that the licenses should be considered on a regional or island-wide basis

[1:38:11] Voice 4: and assessed on an island-wide basis as a mass rather than a piecemeal uh i think it's really

[1:38:20] Voice 4: important to share uh that we should facilitate local shared sources including the bulk hauling so

[1:38:27] Voice 4: um during our communications and community workshops a lot of questions were asked about

[1:38:33] Voice 4: bulk water hauling and we did in the report document as best we could the bulk water hauling

[1:38:41] Voice 4: volumes and it looks overall to be very small quantity of use but it is an essential water

[1:38:49] Voice 4: source so from a sustainability perspective having properly managed local sources of bulk water

[1:38:56] Voice 4: is an important thing rather than bringing in you know and in addition to bringing in water

[1:39:02] Voice 4: from off island if needed but having you know the facilities in place or the ability for that

[1:39:09] Voice 4: to continue you know even say looking at municipal water supply that is a bulk water if they're

[1:39:17] Voice 4: properly sited and managed sources I think is an important water source for the future that needs

[1:39:22] Voice 4: to be to essential to community sustainability um there is definitely a more work that needs

[1:39:33] Voice 4: to be done to integrate water quality databases between the province and and island health and

[1:39:39] Voice 4: also local water source local water suppliers um provincially i think there's opportunities

[1:39:45] Voice 4: to develop water quality objectives for the island so that we could enshrine those thresholds

[1:39:53] Voice 4: and have those as a basis for water regulation and reporting.

[1:39:58] Voice 4: And then, of course, we've talked about the big piece today

[1:40:03] Voice 4: was how do we develop land use policies based on the results

[1:40:06] Voice 4: and what should come of that

[1:40:10] Voice 4: and the need to incorporate Indigenous knowledge

[1:40:13] Voice 4: and perspectives in this work.

[1:40:18] Voice 4: So William had already mentioned the freshwater sustainability

[1:40:24] Voice 4: strategy which is a really important document and um you know some of those recommendations

[1:40:31] Voice 4: get pulled out of that improve data management develop coordinated long-term monitoring

[1:40:36] Voice 4: and continue data information and inventory and of course the ocb pieces um so i think that's all

[1:40:46] Voice 4: i'm going to talk about today and i think we're going to open it up now for um questions all right

[1:40:55] Trustee Patrick (probable): Right. Wow. William and Sylvia, that was an awful lot of information.

[1:41:01] Trustee Patrick (probable): And there'll be a test on it afterwards, I'm sure, for all of those that hung in to the end.

[1:41:08] Trustee Patrick (probable): Now, I do see, Trustee Yates, you have your hand raised, but I also know that, William, that you had received over 60 questions in advance of the presentation that you've done some analysis and grouped that.

[1:41:21] Trustee Patrick (probable): that. So I'll open with Trustee Yates, and then I'd be interested to hear, William, from you on

[1:41:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): sort of what you've received for questions and bring them up in some form that makes sense.

[1:41:34] Trustee Patrick (probable): Trustee Yates.

[1:41:36] Voice 3: Thank you, Chair Patrick, and thank you so much, Sylvia. I'm actually just

[1:41:39] Voice 3: going to ask two questions of your presentation specifically. I'll save my questions for William

[1:41:45] Voice 3: later thank you um so in the um the water use purpose um there's a designation and it says

[1:41:56] Voice 3: industrial camp industrial camp for many of the commercial businesses what does that mean

[1:42:01] Voice 3: industrial camp um

[1:42:05] Voice 4: i'd have to look at uh the camps well the water use purpose we try to

[1:42:13] Voice 4: to make them match with water use purposes under the Water Sustainability Act?

[1:42:20] Voice 4: So industrial camp could include, say, the highways yard?

[1:42:27] Voice 4: Well,

[1:42:28] Voice 3: yeah, I think this needs to be looked at because it covers things like a couple of commercial businesses.

[1:42:36] Voice 3: It covers the RCMP office. It covers the museum, for example.

[1:42:42] Voice 3: So I find that quite confusing. So that's just one of my questions.

[1:42:47] Voice 3: The other one relates to the survey on the purpose of water use on the property. And I'm very concerned that there are no responses, zero, for commercial business.

[1:43:07] Voice 3: That includes stores, restaurants, hotels. And also, we know we have a bulk water supplier on Gabriola who runs a commercial business pumping water on his own property, which I would certainly consider that commercial or industrial. And having no responses in that column is alarming to me.

[1:43:30] Voice 3: and that's all my questions for you otherwise um really interesting report and very detailed thank

[1:43:36] Voice 3: you so much yeah

[1:43:39] Voice 4: i mean so speaking to the water survey the survey was open for two months um it

[1:43:44] Voice 4: was promoted through uh i'm stressed website um emails uh it was promoted through a direct

[1:43:52] Voice 4: mail out to every person or every property on the island um that was facilitated through

[1:44:00] Voice 4: Regional District of Nanaimo. So if those suppliers chose not to participate in the survey,

[1:44:08] Voice 4: that's, you know, an unfortunate thing. I definitely think that more work could be done

[1:44:13] Voice 4: with small water systems on the island. And I think that's kind of a separate work that may be

[1:44:20] Voice 4: in the next steps. And we did approach the water online water hauler and we received detailed data.

[1:44:27] Voice 4: us so the fact that he wasn't incorporated in the survey i think is is not you know he participated

[1:44:33] Voice 4: in other ways and we're able to gather that information in other ways all

[1:44:40] Trustee Patrick (probable): right well thank

[1:44:40] Trustee Patrick (probable): you um so elena i know you said you grouped some of the uh questions that you received in advance

[1:44:46] Trustee Patrick (probable): into some themes i think if you could introduce some of that that might help structure our

[1:44:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): our conversation um

[1:44:56] Voice 2: sure sure um so

[1:45:02] Voice 1: i yeah i have um received um several correspondence from

[1:45:08] Voice 1: the last several weeks since the report draft report was released and um i've collected the

[1:45:19] Voice 1: questions into five themes um coordination and communications is one of them planning and

[1:45:26] Voice 1: governance methodology development uh i gabriel island specific like technical questions and then

[1:45:36] Voice 1: questions relating to authorizations and water licensing um so i have like a top 10 from

[1:45:47] Voice 1: questions that i've selected from from the bulk of them and so i'm just wondering um chair if we

[1:45:55] Voice 1: we want to choose a topic and then I can just share the screen with the questions or would

[1:46:02] Voice 1: you rather me just pose a question from a topic?

[1:46:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): I think I'll go ahead Sylvia. Oh

[1:46:09] Voice 4: I was going to

[1:46:09] Voice 4: say you could pose the question and I could keep safe sharing because if there was a slide that I

[1:46:14] Voice 4: could point back to sometimes that's helpful.

[1:46:16] Trustee Patrick (probable): Yeah William I'm going to trust your judgment

[1:46:20] Trustee Patrick (probable): to pick a theme that's uh directly relevant to what we're trying to demonstrate sure

[1:46:27] Voice 2: okay um

[1:46:32] Voice 2: so

[1:46:38] Voice 4: oh don't tell me sorry

[1:46:42] Voice 1: oh

[1:46:43] Voice 4: it froze there for a second oh

[1:46:45] Voice 1: no i'm just uh oh no

[1:46:49] Voice 1: i'm just going through them right here um yeah uh sylvia um can you speak to uh the

[1:47:00] Voice 1: the, there's a question about the ACFA stress rating in Descanso Bay. And I was just wondering

[1:47:10] Voice 1: if you can speak to the ratings of ACFA stress. There's ratings from like a high and extreme and,

[1:47:20] Voice 1: and perhaps we can start there.

[1:47:26] Voice 4: So it was a specific to do that one area or?

[1:47:31] Voice 4: Just

[1:47:32] Voice 1: in general, how the ACFRA stress was, how the ratings were assigned.

[1:47:41] Voice 1: Stress. So,

[1:47:44] Voice 4: well, in terms of the 40% cutoff, so that was based on previous studies and so want to avoid usage of more than 40% of groundwater recharge.

[1:47:59] Voice 4: And that is a very precautionary approach that will allow for flux to the foreshore and flux to our discharge to surface water, connected surface water sources.

[1:48:14] Voice 4: resources and the in terms of I don't have the groundwater regions on this map but definitely

[1:48:23] Voice 4: we saw higher areas of higher water stress in some commercial zones such as the Skansaw Bay area

[1:48:32] Voice 4: because of the high numbers of water supply systems in those areas so you've got you know

[1:48:39] Voice 4: You know, you've got the clinic, you've got all the commercial facilities, malls and facilities, et cetera.

[1:48:50] Voice 4: So there was a high concentration of usage within a smaller area.

[1:48:56] Voice 4: So in general, where we saw more extreme water stress was where we have areas of very high lot density.

[1:49:03] Voice 4: um so those quarter acre lots rather than say you know or half and quarter acre lots rather than

[1:49:11] Voice 4: you know one two acre parcels kind

[1:49:17] Trustee Patrick (probable): of related to that and one of the questions that's up there is

[1:49:21] Trustee Patrick (probable): so if the precautionary principle the the the 40 percent is really about use or human use is the

[1:49:27] Trustee Patrick (probable): remaining meant to be for the ecosystem use yeah

[1:49:30] Voice 4: yeah and also to account for variability

[1:49:32] Voice 4: inter-annually and long-term.

[1:49:36] Trustee Patrick (probable): Thank you. Go ahead, William.

[1:49:39] Voice 1: Yeah, great. Thank you for that.

[1:49:46] Voice 1: So looking at the water balance, there's a question about environmental flow needs and

[1:49:57] Voice 1: and water required to sustain terrestrial life and how that was accounted for

[1:50:07] Voice 1: in context of also like human extraction that's the question right

[1:50:16] Voice 4: yeah so it it is so

[1:50:19] Voice 4: many of the methods that we looked at in terms of literature search and definitely an indicator

[1:50:27] Voice 4: of sustainability is how much water is going out to freshwater ecosystems so we recognize that in

[1:50:34] Voice 4: any water balance water doesn't just come into the system or it nothing is free so if you take

[1:50:41] Voice 4: uh if you extract groundwater from a system then there's less for that to discharge to

[1:50:49] Voice 4: to freshwater ecosystems that it would normally discharge to.

[1:50:55] Voice 4: However, because we didn't have any flow data,

[1:50:59] Voice 4: we weren't able to quantitatively incorporate

[1:51:05] Voice 4: that into this assessment.

[1:51:08] Voice 4: And there was only flow data available.

[1:51:12] Voice 4: Do I have a hydraulic connection?

[1:51:13] Voice 4: So there was a little bit of monitoring

[1:51:15] Voice 4: that's done in Mallet Creek,

[1:51:17] Voice 4: creek and then there's some qualitative work that stream keepers have done um some studies that show

[1:51:22] Voice 4: you know which streams are um you know uh who have described local watersheds and the stream

[1:51:30] Voice 4: conditions but in general we don't have any formal water survey of canada monitoring sites nor

[1:51:36] Voice 4: conservation uh foundation bc or ministry of environment monitoring sites and so

[1:51:42] Voice 4: So we, you know, one could undertake, say, a modeling exercise to try to estimate how

[1:51:51] Voice 4: much runoff and things like that.

[1:51:53] Voice 4: But that was beyond the scope for this current study.

[1:51:56] Voice 4: And I think it's an important thing to, so we did try to say, okay, highlight, okay,

[1:52:02] Voice 4: where there's this green, you know, along the stream corridors, those are areas where

[1:52:08] Voice 4: where based on topographically, we would expect groundwater discharge to be occurring

[1:52:13] Voice 4: and intersecting with the stream.

[1:52:16] Voice 4: So those are the places where we should kind of focus in our efforts for monitoring in future.

[1:52:27] Voice 2: Great. Thank you for that.

[1:52:38] Voice 2: Perhaps this is a question

[1:52:42] Voice 1: that can be put back to the local trust committee.

[1:52:48] Voice 1: um how or to staff um how should future phases of this work improve coordination between islands

[1:52:59] Voice 1: trust first nations island health the rdn and provincial ministries with fresh water related

[1:53:05] Voice 1: responsibilities so i guess the question is um asking about coordination between bodies and how

[1:53:13] Voice 1: there can be an improved coordination between the agencies partners well I'm

[1:53:22] Trustee Patrick (probable): happy to speak about that I think the island stress does play a significant

[1:53:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): role that's right there in our mandate says that we're to work in cooperation

[1:53:30] Trustee Patrick (probable): and I know on salt spring through you know that we have done that we've we've

[1:53:36] Trustee Patrick (probable): worked as that coordinator water it is distributed over multiple jurisdictions

[1:53:42] Trustee Patrick (probable): And to have real work in this area, we have to work together and be sharing and working together. So I think that's something we need to spend more time doing, whether it's on this island or broader in the more regional context. I think it's very important.

[1:54:05] Trustee Patrick (probable): Yeah,

[1:54:10] Voice 2: that's great, and I want to stay in that same.

[1:54:23] Voice 1: So here's a question about process, and so again, perhaps to the trustees or to staff.

[1:54:34] Voice 1: How should trustees, staff, perhaps the consultants and public commentary be situated within the

[1:54:43] Voice 1: the formal OCP review sequence

[1:54:45] Voice 1: for the Freshwater Footprint.

[1:54:47] Voice 1: So I guess this question is coming from that

[1:54:51] Voice 1: the project has been parallel process to the OCP.

[1:54:58] Voice 1: And then, so how do those all come together?

[1:55:01] Voice 1: I guess is the question within the formal OCP process.

[1:55:07] Voice 1: I

[1:55:08] Trustee Patrick (probable): think I'm gonna look to staff to answer that question.

[1:55:10] Trustee Patrick (probable): Yeah, sure. I can answer

[1:55:17] Planner Chadwick (probable): that question. Yeah, so we are working on the draft OCP currently. And so the areas where the data has been, is sort of influencing some recommended policy options is specifically around the allowance of secondary dwelling units.

[1:55:42] Planner Chadwick (probable): So, looking at allowing secondary dwelling units on lots of a particular size, but only in areas that are not high hazard related to water.

[1:56:00] Planner Chadwick (probable): So, that's one area.

[1:56:01] Planner Chadwick (probable): And then we have criteria identified for evaluating applications and, well, any changes, any amendments to use or any changes to use or density.

[1:56:19] Planner Chadwick (probable): So that would be applications or that would be decisions by the LTC to make any changes that the freshwater footprint analysis would be key criteria to look at.

[1:56:34] Planner Chadwick (probable): And with that, we are recommending there be a schedule in the OCP that identifies the hazard areas.

[1:56:43] Planner Chadwick (probable): is so that's that's what we've got together that will that will be um shared in the in the draft

[1:56:51] Planner Chadwick (probable): ocp when we we've got it together great

[1:56:58] Voice 1: um thank you and then along those lines um there's a

[1:57:02] Voice 1: question um if um if gw solutions report uh recommended how these results should

[1:57:13] Voice 1: guide planning and policy and and to kind of qualify that another question

[1:57:21] Voice 1: was how should the OCP integrate these localized hazard areas into a call the

[1:57:32] Voice 1: question was proposed as a water-neutral mandate which I just just assume is

[1:57:38] Voice 1: water like sustainable water use so uh island recharge can keep pace with the total consumption

[1:57:46] Voice 1: so i i guess there the question is is how will these discrete hazards be integrated into an ocp

[1:57:54] Voice 1: that that um that accomplishes sustainable water use yeah

[1:58:03] Planner Chadwick (probable): so i i think in answering that question

[1:58:05] Planner Chadwick (probable): it's important to think about what the OCP does, and it essentially provides direction.

[1:58:12] Planner Chadwick (probable): So, as I mentioned before, I think the most critical area where the data will be used is

[1:58:19] Planner Chadwick (probable): in any decisions related to changes in use and density. So, those are primarily,

[1:58:28] Planner Chadwick (probable): Again, it's primarily through applications and often and sometimes through LTC initiatives.

[1:58:38] Planner Chadwick (probable): The OCP, any direct changes in the OCP, like I mentioned before, that are impacting user density are looking at where additional secondary units could be located.

[1:58:54] Planner Chadwick (probable): okay

[1:58:57] Voice 1: yeah thanks for that nurse and now that i still have you online um there's like a just a

[1:59:03] Voice 1: general question and i think this is a good time to answer it uh just what authority does island

[1:59:10] Voice 1: trust have over fresh water through land use planning and uh how does that authority relate

[1:59:17] Voice 1: to island health the regional districts and the provincial legislation i

[1:59:24] Planner Chadwick (probable): guess um i mean our

[1:59:27] Planner Chadwick (probable): Our authority or our jurisdictional focus, where we're allowed to make decisions, is related very specifically to what kind of development can go where and what should be protected, essentially.

[1:59:43] Planner Chadwick (probable): So the data can be used to inform those types of decisions.

[1:59:53] Voice 2: Great. Okay. Yeah, thank you for that.

[1:59:56] Voice 2: that. Going back to

[1:59:58] Voice 1: perhaps

[2:00:00] Voice 1: will be a question to Sylvia. What type of land use or water use responses can be proposed to

[2:00:12] Voice 1: address the vulnerability of existing or new coastal wells with relation to the risk of salt

[2:00:21] Voice 1: water intrusion well

[2:00:25] Voice 4: i mean because a lot of the existing wells and and most of the wells on the

[2:00:32] Voice 4: island are domestic uh use so not requiring a license privately managed and operated i think

[2:00:41] Voice 4: a really big component is well owner education and awareness so folks knowing you know how to

[2:00:49] Voice 4: to test their wells how to keep an eye on the trends how to you know see and how to manage

[2:00:56] Voice 4: their water usage to not over extend um the usage so managing that demand piece from the licensing

[2:01:06] Voice 4: point of view so for non-domestic sources i think that there should be

[2:01:12] Voice 4: water quality and quantity monitoring conditions on the licenses so folks need to be monitoring

[2:01:21] Voice 4: their levels to ensure that they avoid drawing the groundwater levels below sea level and they

[2:01:27] Voice 4: need to be managing monitoring chloride and other indicator parameters on an ongoing basis

[2:01:35] Voice 4: basis and quantity of usage as well metered use especially for larger volume users such

[2:01:45] Voice 4: as multi-unit housing from a land use or OCP like one idea was you know what kind of information

[2:01:57] Voice 4: submission requirements would be needed for say a secondary suite so asking folks to provide

[2:02:04] Voice 4: provide a sample you know to show what the the water quality in the well is or or or to document

[2:02:11] Voice 4: the water source or those type of things but i think that we did not go in our study in our

[2:02:19] Voice 4: work we didn't go down the path of outlining specific policies because i feel that that's

[2:02:26] Voice 4: or um that's more the role of the the trust staff but also that that was part of the kind of the

[2:02:34] Voice 4: next step of discussion okay so what do we do with this and i think that there's some kind of more

[2:02:40] Voice 4: to be evaluated there yeah

[2:02:45] Voice 1: that's great um thank you for that i um that does set up a good question

[2:02:51] Voice 1: about um yeah what uh water licensing and non-domestic use but before i go there i kind

[2:03:00] Voice 1: of want to combine two questions together and um so this is to you sylvia um this question is um

[2:03:12] Voice 1: approaching seasonal water demand and so uh was the effect of tourism or some summer cabin use or

[2:03:20] Voice 1: increased use in the summer by users directly or indirectly accounted by this study and if so how

[2:03:27] Voice 1: and then just kind of related to water demand in an area um does the inability to distinguish

[2:03:37] Voice 1: domestic from commercial use in a particular catchment skew the research so i guess what

[2:03:45] Voice 1: that's getting at is um if if we're unsure of a non-domestic use in a particular area

[2:03:54] Voice 1: out would that skew the research um so there's two questions there about seasonal demand and

[2:03:59] Voice 1: and perhaps um increased groundwater uses in areas that are largely domestic yeah so

[2:04:08] Voice 4: we incorporated the seasonal demand component into based on these peaking factors so we developed

[2:04:15] Voice 4: peaking factors based on usage long-term well usage or metered usage from rdn systems

[2:04:22] Voice 4: systems and we looked also at other similar studies that have been done across the islands

[2:04:26] Voice 4: like a golder study on salt spring um and so obviously uh per capita well water outdoor

[2:04:37] Voice 4: water demand is a significant component of increased water use seasonal use and so it

[2:04:45] Voice 4: wasn't possible for us to say you know oh there's four people living in that house now you know

[2:04:50] Voice 4: compared to two that live there normally in winter um we couldn't get to that granularity

[2:04:57] Voice 4: but we did incorporate these peaking factors that considered that outdoor use or that um

[2:05:04] Voice 4: seasonal use would be higher in summer and then in terms of the population statistics

[2:05:10] Voice 4: actually gabriola was one of the islands that had the most kind of permanent residents um

[2:05:18] Voice 4: compared to you know some islands where it's probably mostly non-permanent residents

[2:05:24] Voice 4: Gabriel is much more you know like I forget the exact number but it was like 70 to 80 percent of

[2:05:31] Voice 4: the population are there all the time and of course there's going to be variations in that

[2:05:36] Voice 4: but I think it's not it wouldn't have made a big difference to the water demand estimates to

[2:05:45] Voice 4: to have any additional granularity.

[2:05:48] Voice 4: In terms of commercial or non-domestic use,

[2:05:52] Voice 4: we really try to seek all sources of information

[2:06:00] Voice 4: to figure out where non-domestic use is occurring.

[2:06:05] Voice 4: Local directories, all the water information,

[2:06:08] Voice 4: water source information from Island Health,

[2:06:10] Voice 4: um you know interviews yellow pages google earth like everything so i think they have a pretty good

[2:06:19] Voice 4: handle on where the non-domestic use is um and again you know there's going to be some things

[2:06:25] Voice 4: missed but i think it wouldn't have made a big difference in the final result yeah thanks for

[2:06:30] Voice 1: that that sets up the next suite of questions good so um there's um it's uh it looks like there's

[2:06:38] Voice 1: There's four active groundwater licenses on Gabriola, and I think two of them are irrigation.

[2:06:45] Voice 1: So one of the questions is that if someone is operating wells in a non-domestic matter

[2:06:51] Voice 1: without a license or application, would that be unlawful under the Water Sustainability

[2:06:55] Voice 1: Act?

[2:06:56] Voice 1: And I think you can just briefly touch upon that, but I think we know the answer.

[2:07:01] Voice 1: um the the the follow-up question is are our neighbors justified in being concerned about

[2:07:09] Voice 1: the effect of heavy pumping from non-domestic groundwater use adjacent to their domestic wells

[2:07:15] Voice 1: and i guess that's with a licensor or not i guess that question would stand so um yeah perhaps

[2:07:23] Voice 1: commenting on uh operating wells in a non-domestic matter without a license and then um and then the

[2:07:30] Voice 1: effects of a significant pumping of non-domestic water wells in like residential areas right

[2:07:41] Voice 4: yeah i mean i think that one um so to answer the question about the licensing so

[2:07:49] Voice 4: under the water sustainability act it is required to have a license for a non-domestic

[2:07:53] Voice 4: use purpose um there was a period of transition during which people who had been using the

[2:08:00] Voice 4: groundwater prior to March 1st 2016 could apply there were six years in which they could apply

[2:08:07] Voice 4: as an existing user and then March 2022 that um what was it March 20 it was six years so

[2:08:19] Voice 4: 16 2022 yes how do I get my numbers right um that transition period last and anybody after that

[2:08:27] Voice 4: that need to apply as a new user.

[2:08:31] Voice 4: And non-domestic use includes

[2:08:35] Voice 4: anything that's like a water supply system,

[2:08:39] Voice 4: irrigation of the farm.

[2:08:41] Voice 4: Domestic use is household use,

[2:08:43] Voice 4: including irrigation of a small garden

[2:08:45] Voice 4: and household pets, watering of household pets.

[2:08:48] Voice 4: So anything that's not that is licensable.

[2:08:52] Voice 4: And in terms of non-domestic use nearby,

[2:08:56] Voice 4: by you know i think that it really depends on how much is being used and the terms and conditions on

[2:09:02] Voice 4: the licensing and i i still feel that the water sustainability act and full implementation of

[2:09:07] Voice 4: that is a critical step that needs to happen on the islands and and it's a really important piece

[2:09:12] Voice 4: for managing um water sources and including you know the the license terms and conditions could

[2:09:19] Voice 4: include metering of use could include monitoring groundwater levels to make sure that you're not

[2:09:23] Voice 4: impacting the the you know the adjacent users and certainly during the license adjudication process

[2:09:29] Voice 4: the impacts your adjacent users are thought about and evaluated so um just because you have

[2:09:37] Voice 4: someone nearby who is is a non-domestic use that's an important like water needs to be supplied for

[2:09:44] Voice 4: a variety of purposes a sustainable community is one that support supports agriculture that

[2:09:51] Voice 4: supports you know services that supports you know households as well so when we look at priority

[2:10:00] Voice 4: uses or we look at the type of breadth of a community it has to include um you know a range

[2:10:10] Voice 4: of different water use purposes and so we shouldn't necessarily vilify um licenseable use i

[2:10:17] Voice 4: think it's an important part of it so um i think that answers yeah yeah

[2:10:25] Voice 1: that's great um uh let's uh

[2:10:28] Voice 1: uh how much time we got we have eight minutes left um and so i i chair i i have

[2:10:35] Voice 1: a technical question left and maybe one around um talking about um

[2:10:45] Voice 1: water objectives. And I'm just wondering if we want to perhaps give the LTC a chance to ask

[2:10:52] Voice 1: a question

[2:10:52] Voice 2: if there are any before we run out of time.

[2:10:55] Trustee Patrick (probable): There are a lot of questions that I'll look

[2:10:56] Trustee Patrick (probable): to Trustee Yates and Trustee Elliott. Do you have any questions or keep going with what he has?

[2:11:05] Voice 6: I'd actually

[2:11:05] Voice 6: love to see the last question in the queue answered about the applicability of

[2:11:10] Voice 6: methodology or the model to other islands in the trust area this was understood to be a project

[2:11:17] Voice 6: that would um establish the methodology um to be used on other islands so um if you could unpack

[2:11:25] Voice 6: that a little bit as to how you know our other researchers need to be engaged is this sort of

[2:11:33] Voice 6: a plug and play model or is there extensive work that would need to be done on other islands to

[2:11:40] Voice 6: make this useful thanks yeah

[2:11:43] Voice 4: that's a really good question so um i would say that a lot of

[2:11:47] Voice 4: the components of the methodology could be what readily available on other islands so

[2:11:53] Voice 4: the um the land use assessment you know bc assessment inventories of water users

[2:12:01] Voice 4: that type of stuff is probably readily available the water quality and the monitoring components

[2:12:07] Voice 4: So looking at, say, long-term groundwater level trends and such, some islands would have less data available to look at that, but it wasn't an essential, you know, it wasn't incorporated in the spatial component.

[2:12:25] Voice 4: it so and then the water quality data um that was a significant effort to pull together and where

[2:12:34] Voice 4: you know I think I highlighted um two really important sources which was the Earl and Crog

[2:12:42] Voice 4: data set um some sampling that Steve Earl and researchers at Vancouver Island University had

[2:12:49] Voice 4: done in the early 2000s on the island as well as data that came from regional district of Nanaimo

[2:12:54] Voice 4: drinking water and watershed protection program so those ones again you know it probably would

[2:13:01] Voice 4: be more effort to pull together the water quality or more time to pull together the

[2:13:06] Voice 4: water quality for other communities but it's not it's totally doable so um i think uh it is

[2:13:15] Voice 4: very applicable probably run into similar problem with the surface water monitoring piece so um

[2:13:22] Voice 4: You know, the hydrometric networks on the island are limited, on the islands are limited. And so, you know, islands like Salt Spring where they've invested a lot and there's, you know, local community networks with monitoring and trust-led networks monitoring on the groundwater side.

[2:13:44] Voice 4: I think those would be better off in terms of being able to more quickly apply the method.

[2:13:51] Voice 4: it.

[2:13:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): Thank you. Trustee

[2:13:55] Voice 3: Yates. Thank you. I'm a little bit concerned about the data gaps that

[2:14:03] Voice 3: are well acknowledged, both in William Schauble's report and also Sylvia in your report too. And I

[2:14:10] Voice 3: do appreciate that. But the gaps indicate that we do need more information in some cases in order to

[2:14:18] Voice 3: make this information relevant to whatever we decide to do with the official community plan.

[2:14:23] Voice 3: so just for an example I went through the table of the non-domestic groundwater users

[2:14:28] Voice 3: and I was able to supply some of that information myself so just giving you an example I live at

[2:14:35] Voice 3: the Gabriola Garden Homes it's a strata we know how many wells we have we have we know how many

[2:14:40] Voice 3: cisterns we know we have a water license so I'm a bit worried that some of that information is

[2:14:45] Voice 3: missing in that table and we need it and just a comment about you know I would never vilify

[2:14:52] Voice 3: anyone for obtaining a provincial water license because the whole point of that is then we know

[2:14:58] Voice 3: what they're going to be using it for and approximately how much they're going to be

[2:15:03] Voice 3: using. I think the problem is that the provincial licensing agency is so far behind

[2:15:12] Voice 3: and I did send a note to William Shelbaugh on that note because it's just quite amazing that

[2:15:21] Voice 3: some of the places that are non-domestic water users, they have a water license or they don't

[2:15:27] Voice 3: have a water license, but we don't know. And it's nobody's fault because the licensing agency is so

[2:15:34] Voice 3: backlogged. So I'm quite concerned about that. And the only other comment I wanted to make at this

[2:15:39] Voice 3: point is that, William Shelbaugh, in your report, you note that we're looking at a more technically

[2:15:47] Voice 3: grounded framework than has been previously available in the precautionary principle

[2:15:52] Voice 3: approaches. And I agree, but I'm not sure exactly how precautionary we have been in the past.

[2:16:00] Voice 3: So I'm a bit concerned about that. And I still believe we need to move forward in a very

[2:16:05] Voice 3: precautionary way, no matter how much technical knowledge we have, because we're facing a climate

[2:16:14] Voice 3: emergency so i just wanted to make that note but i really i'm so grateful for all of your work both

[2:16:21] Voice 3: of you i really appreciate it i

[2:16:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): don't know if there was a definite question there but there

[2:16:29] Trustee Patrick (probable): was some i mean

[2:16:31] Voice 4: i as far as the licensing piece like uh we did our best to understand what was

[2:16:37] Voice 4: licensed and what wasn't but the data sets that are available from the province haven't been

[2:16:42] Voice 4: are are incomplete and so i think that we uh in terms of you know usage per site and and we

[2:16:51] Voice 4: definitely were able to inventory wells and that data um just so you're aware for the um trustee

[2:16:57] Voice 4: yates um for the your multi-unit housing we we did document that but that was not provided in

[2:17:05] Voice 4: the report like you know where we recognize which wells were on site and which ones belong to that

[2:17:09] Voice 4: thing but that was not included in in the report itself because it wasn't it was yeah i i didn't

[2:17:16] Voice 4: include that those data but um we have that and we're happy to share that with the ministry and um

[2:17:25] Voice 4: you know i think that it is important for to support the work that's being done there and

[2:17:31] Voice 4: i think it's it's also ensuring adequate resourcing of the water authorizations and and um

[2:17:38] Voice 4: a lot of protection programs and you know that is always at risk so you know things that we can do

[2:17:47] Voice 4: to support their work as well is important um

[2:17:52] Voice 1: and uh yeah thanks for that so yeah and and to

[2:17:54] Voice 1: address trustee it's with precautionary principle i i guess what i'm trying to say

[2:17:59] Voice 1: is that um we need to identify ways to advance our implementation of the island's trust policy

[2:18:07] Voice 1: And previously, looking at areas that have potential water quality or quantity issues is that we have utilized site-specific testing and application outcomes to generalize the risk or vulnerability of regional water supplies,

[2:18:34] Voice 1: which um that information provided to island's trust was not meant for that outcome and and so

[2:18:45] Voice 1: we we use a precautionary principle to say well based on these applications we're going to be in

[2:18:50] Voice 1: precaution because there was issues so now we're going to or there wasn't issues and we're going

[2:18:55] Voice 1: to go forward with an application or not um where in this case we have taken a detailed approach to

[2:19:01] Voice 1: to address that particular aspect

[2:19:04] Voice 1: of the Island Trust Policy Statement.

[2:19:05] Voice 1: So I'm not saying we're gonna move on in a haphazard way

[2:19:09] Voice 1: with this information, just taking,

[2:19:12] Voice 1: we're changing principles from a precautionary principle

[2:19:16] Voice 1: with qualitative information to a more quantitative approach

[2:19:20] Voice 1: and evidence-based decision-making,

[2:19:22] Voice 1: which I think looking at the Freshwater Hazard Map

[2:19:27] Voice 1: is a step in that direction

[2:19:29] Voice 1: and including it in the OCP in ways that will be useful for this update,

[2:19:36] Voice 1: but then also useful for staff and trustees to make decisions on applications going into the future

[2:19:42] Voice 1: without additional updates to the OCP.

[2:19:48] Trustee Patrick (probable): All right.

[2:19:49] Trustee Patrick (probable): Well, I know I do want to get to that water quality objectives conversation.

[2:19:53] Trustee Patrick (probable): I know I'm one person who feels that our mandate, that we've been entrusted to preserve and protect this area,

[2:20:00] Trustee Patrick (probable): and that we have the authority to make recommendations to the province as to what we need

[2:20:06] Trustee Patrick (probable): and that we could also be much stronger in making recommendations to operators as well on the islands for water services.

[2:20:16] Trustee Patrick (probable): But one of your recommendations is consideration of water quality objectives.

[2:20:20] Trustee Patrick (probable): Could you maybe just talk a little bit about how that could be useful going forward?

[2:20:25] Trustee Patrick (probable): Yeah,

[2:20:27] Voice 4: so under the Water Sustainability Act, there is a mechanism to establish water quality objectives and water quality objectives could be, you know, an example would be, say, for a surface water source, ensure that water of adequate quality for a specific fish habitat or something like that.

[2:20:52] Voice 4: but i think a really useful application could be on the islands to have the water quality

[2:21:02] Voice 4: thresholds or operational thresholds have those be somewhere in regulation or to develop specific

[2:21:11] Voice 4: thresholds or target water quality guidelines for the islands themselves that would help guide

[2:21:19] Voice 4: both licensing and operation of wells and um because currently the water sustainability act

[2:21:27] Voice 4: says that it's not permitted to cause intrusion but it doesn't define what intrusion is like it

[2:21:34] Voice 4: doesn't say okay this is a source is intruded and impacted or this is not and so um you know

[2:21:43] Voice 4: and those need to be regionally informed, informed by regional data and so I think the steps taken to

[2:21:50] Voice 4: compile you know such a comprehensive database of water quality for a specific island really gives

[2:21:59] Voice 4: you much better sense in terms of the spatial variability and statistics and so that the next

[2:22:06] Voice 4: step would be able to say okay well this is you know and I didn't get into my presentation today

[2:22:10] Voice 4: day but we looked at you know statistical approaches like looking at background concentration

[2:22:15] Voice 4: so i think that's a really powerful tool to say where outliers in the data exist and um so you

[2:22:22] Voice 4: can say you know if you're above this background threshold or threshold value then something is

[2:22:29] Voice 4: causing it and and whether there could be and what the action to be taken in that case i'm not certain

[2:22:39] Voice 4: whether that would be a non-compliance or whether that would be required to study more or or denial

[2:22:45] Voice 4: of a water license for example you know or saying no you can't have it unless you do x and x

[2:22:50] Voice 4: like i think that even at the very least establishing okay this is what good water

[2:22:56] Voice 4: quality is this is what fresh water quality is for this region um if it is above that

[2:23:04] Voice 4: threshold or objective then something needs to be done at a regional scale when you're talking about

[2:23:11] Voice 4: multiple users if regionally the median values were showing an increasing trend for example

[2:23:19] Voice 4: then water quality objectives could be established to say okay we want to keep

[2:23:23] Voice 4: the long-term values within a certain value that's like the the commonality of the resource

[2:23:30] Voice 4: or you would want or they've been used as a similar example where nitrate values exceeded

[2:23:36] Voice 4: so they could set a nitrate value as something lower so they're trying to re you know diminish

[2:23:40] Voice 4: the inputs or diminish the the effects that are causing that exceedance to occur of that objective

[2:23:47] Voice 4: to try to bring things down or keep things more sustainable or freshwater maintained

[2:23:53] Voice 4: so maybe that's kind of a complicated answer but all right i i

[2:24:01] Voice 4: should have put my thinking cap on

[2:24:03] Voice 4: to have an answer to that well i

[2:24:06] Trustee Patrick (probable): think it's one of those things since there aren't any yet in the

[2:24:08] Trustee Patrick (probable): province i think we could help shape what that were to look like in the gulf islands i think

[2:24:13] Trustee Patrick (probable): you would agree are probably good candidates for this kind of work yeah

[2:24:17] Voice 4: and i but i believe that

[2:24:18] Voice 4: there are some objectives but they've been more quantity based and fisheries based right the work

[2:24:24] Voice 4: has been done you know more with first nations communities around specific at-risk species and

[2:24:30] Voice 4: so that's i think there's a different avenue like you say that we could examine in terms of what

[2:24:35] Voice 4: does that mean in terms of groundwater quality um yeah super

[2:24:41] Trustee Patrick (probable): well thank you i want to look to staff

[2:24:44] Trustee Patrick (probable): before i go to wrap up are there any other comments you'd like to make on next steps for

[2:24:53] Trustee Patrick (probable): this project um

[2:24:57] Voice 1: so uh chair i i've um we've collated the uh questions that have been uh

[2:25:04] Voice 1: asked today in the chat um and then there's of course others that weren't asked today so we

[2:25:12] Voice 1: we do have a um a wealth of questions that um that have been provided and so it'd be you know to the

[2:25:23] Voice 1: the will of the local trust committee how they would like staff to to address those questions

[2:25:29] Voice 1: oh

[2:25:32] Trustee Patrick (probable): trustees uh go ahead trustee elliott um

[2:25:36] Voice 6: perhaps we could group them in general themes

[2:25:40] Voice 6: like you did before william and post uh frequently asked questions on the project web page

[2:25:46] Voice 6: um so that people researching the project could find those answers that be possible to do some

[2:25:54] Voice 6: some work after this meeting and try to adjust some of those questions and we can leave the

[2:25:59] Voice 6: planning related ones to planners and the more technical ones i don't know if we've got um

[2:26:05] Voice 6: our um consultants on a very long tether that we could still ask them to answer anything but

[2:26:12] Voice 6: i'm sure you've got some some good answers on the technical side but

[2:26:16] Voice 6: um that would be that would be my preference is to see them answered in some sort of publicly

[2:26:22] Voice 6: publicly accessible way. Yes, Trustee Yates, is there any objection to that approach?

[2:26:29] Trustee Patrick (probable): No, I think

[2:26:30] Trustee Patrick (probable): that's a very good approach. Thank you, Trustee Elliott.

[2:26:34] Trustee Patrick (probable): All right, I guess I look to staff. Do you need direction from us to do that?

[2:26:38] Voice 1: I think this is direction enough for that purpose. I think that's a good outcome

[2:26:44] Voice 1: from this meeting. What staff was seeking direction in my staff report

[2:26:53] Voice 1: I have two recommendations in there, and I just wondered if we wanted to cover them now or not.

[2:27:01] Voice 1: The two recommendations.

[2:27:03] Voice 1: Oh, lost my sheet.

[2:27:09] Voice 3: Chair Patrick, I sent you a note about my internet.

[2:27:12] Voice 3: Sorry about that, but I am awaiting those recommendations or whatever.

[2:27:16] Voice 3: Thank you.

[2:27:16] Voice 3: So

[2:27:18] Voice 1: the recommendations are simply that the Gabriela Island Local Trust Committee receive

[2:27:26] Voice 1: the GW Solutions Report. And then the second one is that the Gabriela LDC directs staff to consider

[2:27:34] Voice 1: the freshwater footprint hazard map and associated analysis in the development of the official

[2:27:40] Voice 1: community plan review policy options that you will receive at your next meeting.

[2:27:44] Voice 1: All

[2:27:50] Voice 6: right, Trustee Elliott. So a question about the word consider. You don't want to use something more direct like employ or implement the policy directions as recommended in the report. It's just sort of, it's a little bit vague as to how it

[2:28:10] Voice 6: would be used.

[2:28:11] Voice 6: uh

[2:28:12] Voice 1: thanks for that um so uh following this meeting uh planning staff have to meet and consider our

[2:28:21] Voice 1: conversation and and the questions and then also um provide like it and start implementing

[2:28:31] Voice 1: um this work into options so that's if that i guess the alternative of this would be for the

[2:28:40] Voice 1: Gabriel LCC to direct staff to not consider any of this in the OCP. So it's enabling us to include

[2:28:48] Voice 1: it for your next meeting. I

[2:28:53] Trustee Patrick (probable): think higher level policies always make sense. The one that's missing

[2:28:57] Trustee Patrick (probable): here is there are a number of recommendations for additional data, which somewhat mimic many

[2:29:02] Trustee Patrick (probable): reports that have been received in the Gulf Islands over the years. And I'm wondering about

[2:29:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): kind of a prioritization of those recommended additional data like what's what is the most

[2:29:15] Trustee Patrick (probable): important things that we should be focusing on because that could also be a policy to say go

[2:29:19] Trustee Patrick (probable): collect that yeah

[2:29:21] Voice 1: um yeah thanks for that sure i i mean it's difficult to to know where um the line

[2:29:28] Voice 1: is from additional methodology development and overall direction for islands trust to take like

[2:29:34] Voice 1: federation wide is that largely this project's both right it's a local gabriela island government

[2:29:41] Voice 1: project but it's also a federation wide one that that there should be good discussions about water

[2:29:47] Voice 1: objectives and things like that but um specifically relating to the um gabriela advancement of the ocp

[2:29:56] Voice 1: um there it's possible that

[2:29:59] Voice 1: I don't know.

[2:30:00] Voice 1: there there is um some directives there from the recommendations so that it's it's just based on

[2:30:08] Voice 1: that that that there's um it's just the handling of of those recommendations if it's to be handled

[2:30:15] Voice 1: at the gabriola local trust committee table or perhaps something at like the regional planning

[2:30:20] Voice 1: committee level okay

[2:30:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): well i just see some of this is specific to gabriola that could be helpful too

[2:30:30] Trustee Patrick (probable): too, is the data that's recommended. What could be done? Sure.

[2:30:34] Trustee Patrick (probable): What role do we play to help move

[2:30:37] Trustee Patrick (probable): that, you know, closer to being done is what I'm looking at. Sure. Yeah.

[2:30:41] Voice 4: Well, I don't know if it's

[2:30:44] Voice 4: possible to have one suggestion that I think would be really cool, good to action was, you know, we

[2:30:54] Voice 4: we did this water monitoring workshop, and it was very well done

[2:30:59] Voice 4: and had input from, you know, many folks from ministries and such.

[2:31:05] Voice 4: But as Trustee Yates pointed out, you know,

[2:31:08] Voice 4: maybe we didn't get so much involvement from the commercial operators

[2:31:13] Voice 4: and small water systems, in particular in those workshops.

[2:31:17] Voice 4: So I think having another monitoring workshop focusing on the needs

[2:31:22] Voice 4: of small water systems and bringing in island health

[2:31:26] Voice 4: and some folks from water, land and resource stewardship

[2:31:30] Voice 4: and such, I think that would be a really tremendous thing

[2:31:35] Voice 4: that could come out of this to try to improve monitoring

[2:31:38] Voice 4: and get those folks online with what their monitoring options

[2:31:44] Voice 4: and costs and get them enthused about that

[2:31:48] Voice 4: and how can we share data.

[2:31:49] Voice 4: I think that would be really lovely to see yeah

[2:31:53] Trustee Patrick (probable): that would and I know from

[2:31:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): salt spring when we did our water budget that was one of the recommendations was

[2:31:58] Trustee Patrick (probable): you had 12 different water services using 12 different methods to to report

[2:32:03] Trustee Patrick (probable): that so there was if there could be some harmonization we could have hard far

[2:32:08] Trustee Patrick (probable): better data yeah I think so all right well so how would you like to proceed do

[2:32:16] Trustee Patrick (probable): Do you want to do these motions today?

[2:32:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): I guess I'd look to Trustees Elliott or Yates.

[2:32:22] Voice 3: I'd be happy to move the first one, Chair Patrick.

[2:32:26] Voice 3: And I really do agree with your assessment of some of the recommendations.

[2:32:33] Voice 3: They're very good, and especially when they relate to, you know, the data we could be getting.

[2:32:39] Voice 3: And it does apply to the whole trust area.

[2:32:41] Voice 3: So I'm kind of in my head going and thinking about the trust policy statement also,

[2:32:46] Voice 3: So, because of course it's not finished yet.

[2:32:48] Voice 3: So I think we should think about that

[2:32:51] Voice 3: because these are really good recommendations.

[2:32:53] Voice 3: But I'm happy just to move the simple one

[2:32:55] Voice 3: for our trust committee.

[2:32:56] Voice 3: Go ahead.

[2:32:58] Voice 3: I move that the Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee

[2:33:00] Voice 3: receive the GW Solutions Report

[2:33:02] Voice 3: titled Island's Trust Freshwater Footprint

[2:33:06] Voice 3: Methodology Development and Gabriola Case Study.

[2:33:09] Trustee Patrick (probable): Is there a second?

[2:33:11] Trustee Patrick (probable): Second by Trustee Elliott.

[2:33:13] Trustee Patrick (probable): Any discussion?

[2:33:17] Trustee Patrick (probable): I'll call the vote.

[2:33:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): all those in favor please raise your hands that carries happy

[2:33:24] Voice 3: to move the second one as well

[2:33:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): i guess i moved

[2:33:27] Voice 3: that the gabriela island local trust committee directs staff to consider the

[2:33:31] Voice 3: freshwater footprint hazard map and associated analysis in the development of official community

[2:33:37] Voice 3: plan review policy options before

[2:33:40] Trustee Patrick (probable): that second did i wonder with this could we just say and

[2:33:45] Trustee Patrick (probable): and recommendations, because the recommendations could turn into policy. Would that be all right?

[2:33:51] Trustee Patrick (probable): Yes, I think that'd be

[2:33:52] Trustee Patrick (probable): a really good idea. Lisa, I hope you got that. So, associated analysis,

[2:34:01] Trustee Patrick (probable): map, map, comma, associated analysis in the development, and recommendations in the

[2:34:10] Trustee Patrick (probable): the development all right sorry

[2:34:16] Voice 6: i think there's an extra map in there lisa the first map is can go

[2:34:22] Voice 1: no second one the

[2:34:24] Voice 1: second one yeah

[2:34:25] Trustee Patrick (probable): there you go all right is there a second to this motion

[2:34:31] Trustee Patrick (probable): second by trustee elliott any discussion uh trustee yates oh are you voting just want to

[2:34:42] Trustee Patrick (probable): make sure all right i guess there's no discussion so i am going to call about then all those in

[2:34:47] Trustee Patrick (probable): favor please raise your hands and that carries um i'd love to talk more about this but i know

[2:34:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): people would like to go uh probably have dinner i really want to thank everyone who came today

[2:34:59] Trustee Patrick (probable): and listened there was an awful lot of information here if you have more questions we do want to hear

[2:35:04] Trustee Patrick (probable): them please send them to freshwater at islandstrust.bc.ca or to your trustees and we'll

[2:35:12] Trustee Patrick (probable): get them to this uh this uh email address um please subscribe to the to the islands trust

[2:35:21] Trustee Patrick (probable): uh website in particular note gabriel gabriela island so that we can send you information about

[2:35:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): the next steps of the ocp project there is a web page on the project on our on our website

[2:35:33] Trustee Patrick (probable): and there that's where we'll have more information about the public engagement processes going

[2:35:38] Trustee Patrick (probable): going forward. So I really want to thank everybody. And I really want to thank you, Sylvia, for

[2:35:46] Trustee Patrick (probable): your presentation, for the details. There's a lot of information here. And for William

[2:35:51] Trustee Patrick (probable): for shepherding this project through and for Nerissa for trying to think of how to put

[2:35:55] Trustee Patrick (probable): this into land use planning real world. And I want to thank everybody. So I think at this

[2:36:04] Trustee Patrick (probable): point i'm looking for a motion to adjourn uh so from trustee yates and seconded by trustee elliott

[2:36:11] Trustee Patrick (probable): so we are adjourned thank you everyone so um we are adjourned thanks

[2:36:19] Voice 6: everyone thank you thank you

Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee
Minutes of Special Meeting

Date: March 23, 2026
Location: Electronic Meeting,
and a physical location to view the livestream of the meeting:
Islands Trust Gabriola Office
700 North Road
Gabriola, BC V0R 1X3

Members Present: 
Laura Patrick, Chair
Tobi Elliott, Trustee
Susan Yates, Trustee

Staff Present:
Stephen Baugh, Island Planner
Narissa Chadwick, Island Planner
William Shulba, Senior Freshwater Specialist
Lisa Millard, Meeting Administrator/Recorder

Others Present:
There were approximately 31 members of the public in attendance.

1. CALL TO ORDER
Chair Patrick called the meeting to order at 3:32 p.m.

2. TERRITORIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Chair Patrick acknowledged that the meeting was held on the territory of the Coast Salish First Nations.

3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
By general consent the agenda was approved as presented.

4. BUSINESS ITEMS

4.1 Major Project: Gabriola Island Comprehensive Official Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw Review - Communication and Engagement on Official Community Plan Draft - Staff Report

The Planner summarized the staff report and noted the report provides an updated Project Charter reflecting the Local Trust Committee’s request for an in-person meeting to be held prior to First Reading of the draft Official Community Plan and a Communications and Engagement plan to support community engagement to Second and Third readings.

Discussion ensued and the following comments and clarifications were noted:
- The public feedback form will include key questions to help guide feedback;

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## Page 2 of 5, Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee Special Meeting Minutes, March 23, 2026

- New Development Permit Areas are not included within the project scope; however, the Official Community Plan has a section on implementation and advocacy which identifies next steps for Development Permit Areas;
- Alternative dates for a community engagement session will need to be identified.

### GB-2026-023
**It was MOVED and SECONDED**  
that the Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee endorse the revised project charter.  
**CARRIED**

### GB-2026-024
**It was MOVED and SECONDED**  
that the Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee endorse the communications and engagement plan for the next steps in the Gabriola Official Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw Review Project as amended.  
**CARRIED**

### 4.2 Islands Trust Freshwater Footprint Methodology Development and Gabriola Island Case Study - Staff Report

The Senior Freshwater Specialist introduced the staff report and provided background to the Freshwater Sustainability Strategy and the Freshwater Footprint Project and highlighted the following:
- Throughout the development of the Freshwater Sustainability Strategy there was a parallel process undertaken with Indigenous knowledge holders and Indigenous youth;
- Islands Trust staff and GW Solutions consultants coordinated with partners including the Regional District of Nanaimo’s Drinking Water and Watershed Program, the Province of BC, and Island Health and also engaged residents, subject experts, and interested parties throughout the process;
- The Islands Trust Freshwater Sustainability Strategy was released in December, 2021 and can be located by following this link: https://islandstrust.bc.ca/document/freshwater-sustainability-strategy/
- The purpose of the strategy is to have freshwater sustainability be a key lens through which Islands Trust land use decisions are made, to support research and advocacy, and provide public access to information about water resources and associated data;
- The goals, objectives, and core programs were outlined;
- The Freshwater Footprint is a keystone project that has been developed on technical foundations including aquifer conceptualization, groundwater region mapping, groundwater availability analysis, risk of seawater intrusion studies, and groundwater recharge assessment;
- Planning outcomes from the Freshwater Footprint project include identifying options for decision making and land use intensity and density changes.


GW Solutions Consultant Sylvia Barros provided a presentation on the Freshwater Footprint project and detailed criteria and methodology used to develop the Gabriola Case Study. For full details, the link to the study is:
https://islandstrust.bc.ca/document/islands-trust-freshwater-footprint-methodology-development-and-gabriola-case-study/

The Gabriola Case Study presentation included information on freshwater resources, results of the 2025 water survey, freshwater hazards and risks, groundwater recharge potential, estimated residential groundwater use, mapping related to aquifer stresses, contaminants, seawater intrusion, water quality, and intrusion hazard zones, conclusions and recommendations.

4.2.1 Question and Answer Period

The following questions and answers were noted:

The Senior Freshwater Specialist noted 60 questions were received in advance of the presentation and he chose common themes to address.

* How were the aquifer stress rating assigned?
  * Areas of water stress were identified in areas of high density on smaller lots and commercial use and based on usages of more than 40% of groundwater recharge.

* How were water environmental flow needs and water required to sustain terrestrial life accounted for in the water balance?
  * As an indicator of sustainability, they looked how much water was discharged to freshwater ecosystems after groundwater extraction; however, flow data was not available so quantitative analysis was not provided.

* How should future phases of this work improve coordination between Islands Trust, Island Health, First Nations, the Regional District and provincial ministries with freshwater-related responsibilities?
  * Islands Trust plays a significant role and as water is distributed over multiple jurisdictions and there is need to work in a broader context.

* How should the project results be situated in the context of the Official Community Plan Review?
  * Areas where data will influence recommend policy options will include identifying locations where secondary dwelling units will be considered on lots that are not in a high hazard area.

* How should the Official Community Plan integrate localized hazard areas into a water neutral / sustainable water use mandate and how can recharge keep pace with total consumption?
  * The Official Community Plan provides direction on land use planning and data will be used in decisions related to density through applications and Local Trust Committee initiatives. Any direct changes in the Official Community Plan that impact density will be

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looking at where additional secondary units, that are not already permitted, can be located.

* What authority does Islands Trust have over freshwater through land use planning and how does that authority relate to Island Health and Provincial regulation?
  * Islands Trust's jurisdictional focus is related to what kind of development can go where and what should be protected and the data can be used to inform those types of decisions.

* What type of water use responses can be used to address vulnerability to existing or new coastal wells with relation to salt water intrusion?
  * Many existing wells are domestic use which do not require a license and a large component of addressing vulnerability is owner management and education in well testing and managed uses.

* Was the effect of tourism or summer use directly or indirectly accounted for in the study and if so, how?
  * Peaking factors in the study looked at summer demand of which outdoor water use is a significant component of increased water use. It is not possible to separate outdoor use from increased residency in terms of population statistics. The study sought all sources of information to determine where non domestic use is occurring but they do not think this would have made a difference in the final results.

* Are neighbours justified in being concerned about heavy pumping from a well adjacent to domestic wells?
  * Under the Water Sustainability Act, users are required to have a license for non domestic purposes and terms and conditions of the license determine how much use is permitted.

* Is the model applicable to other islands?
  * Many components of the methodology could be readily available on other islands.

The Senior Freshwater Specialist noted the questions asked from attendees will be collated and a FAQ posted to the project webpage.

### GB-2026-025
It was MOVED and SECONDED that the Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee receive the GW Solutions report titled Islands Trust Freshwater Footprint Methodology Development and Gabriola Case Study.

#### CARRIED

### GB-2026-026
It was MOVED and SECONDED that the Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee direct staff to consider the Freshwater Footprint Hazard map, associated analysis,

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and recommendations in the development of Official Community Plan review policy options.

CARRIED

5. ADJOURNMENT

By general consent the meeting was adjourned at 6:08 p.m.

_________________________

Laura Patrick, Chair

Certified Correct:

_________________________

Lisa Millard, Meeting Administrator/Recorder

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