Water in Canada.

Dr Karen Bakker   UBC Professor.    Water in Canada;  Key facts about our most pressing water-related challengers. Canada has %6.7 of the world’s fresh renewable water supply.  That’s all.  We tend to think we have unlimited supplies.

We do have %20 of the worlds fresh water but much of this is very slow in replenishing.  If you consider the replenishing bit, like interest on money then you can understand we shouldn’t be spending the capital.

We could suffer a drought.  We are very heavy water users.  Typically we use 350 litres per person per day whilst Europe uses 120 lt to 150 lt  a day.  Big difference.

The tar sands projects use 4 barrels of water to produce 1 barrel of oil.    Do the benefits outweigh the costs?    

Do we treat water as well as we might?

The U. S. has much higher standards than we do for water treatment.

We are the only country of the OECD that doesn’t have legally binding drinking water guidelines.

We have guidelines not laws.

We have removed phosphates form our cleaning chemicals.  That was a major source of pollution.  That was a Canadian study that got the international laws changed.

Micro Hydro dams are more polluting than the big projects because of the excessive power distribution lines.

Site C is better than the small ones.

We divert more water than the U.S does.  Water is expensive to transport.

Hydro power is more flexible than other kinds like coal or nuclear.

Dams do have to be rebuilt and the true cost of a dam is now being calculated into the project.  Not as cheap as we thought it was.

Provinces have responsibility for water except the Federals have responsibility for fish so they over lap there.

The speaker was thanked by Harreson.