Who Decides on Watershed land use?
You and I, Citizens from the municipalities of Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay and Esquimalt.
Elect
Municipal governments, Mayors and council
Appoints representatives to
Greater Victoria Water Board, Number of municipal representatives: Victoria (3), Saanich (3), Oak Bay (1), and Esquimalt (1)
Directs and decides policies
Greater Victoria Water District, Citizens from the municipalities of Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay and Esquimalt.
Carries out policy
It’s up to citizens to inform elected representatives on how our watershed lands are to be managed.
Logging dollars don’t add up
A financial report prepared for the GVWD by an accounting firm says “little effort was made to establish an accurate cost accounting system for forestry operations in the watershed.”
The report, entitled ‘Financial Impact of Forestry Operations on GVWD, 1949-1991’, was presented to the water district’s board this spring.
Even using the questionable financial data from the GVWD, some quick calculations show how little money logging our water district lands has saved the water users. Between 1949 and 1991 (43 years) $34 million was made from logging revenues. This makes for an annual average of nearly $800,000. That would mean that for each water user (approximately 275,000 in ’91) less than one cent per person per day was saved through logging in our Greater Victoria Water District. What are the long term financial costs that would be passed on to the consumer if logging was to continue? We don’t know. Estimates on potential costs for a filtration plant alone run anywhere from $100 million to $300 million. That’s many times more than all combined logging profits. Watershed rehabilitation costs have not even been considered.
