BC Farmers Say Groundwater Use Rules Are Putting Food Security at Risk

Amid drought conditions, the BC government has begun cutting groundwater access to unlicensed users

Horses graze at a farm on Alberni Inlet near Port Alberni, B.C., in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck)

Some B.C. farmers say they were stunned after the Ministry of Forests ordered them to shut down their wells, noting this has cut off their groundwater supply, putting livelihoods at risk and threatening food security.

The order says certain farms and businesses are part of watersheds that have been experiencing extreme water shortages and operating without a groundwater licence, which they were required to apply for by March 2022. Enforcement escalated this summer as the province began taking more measures to conserve water, citing drought conditions.

“I am hearing that many small farming operations did not know about this licence and are shocked about the possible impact it will have on their small business,” Katy Ehrlich, who runs a biodynamic farm in the Cowichan Valley on southern Vancouver Island, told The Epoch Times.

The requirement to obtain a water licence was introduced back in February 2016, when B.C. brought in the Water Sustainability Act to update strategies to protect streams and aquifers and sustainably manage and allocate water, not only for farms and businesses but also for fish and wildlife.

The act also provided an enforcement mechanism and set a deadline by which all users of groundwater for non-household purposes, such as irrigation or commercial or industrial use, were expected to apply for a water licence.

March 1, 2022, was the third extension of the deadline. However, by then only 7,711 groundwater applications had been received, the Ministry of Forests told The Epoch Times in an email. That only accounted for about 40 percent of the estimated 20,000 non-domestic groundwater users, generally from wells or dugouts for agriculture or other businesses, reported The Tyee on March 3, 2022.

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In Courtenay on Vancouver Island, up to 50 local businesses and farms were served with water cease-and-desist orders, including two nurseries, according to an employee who spoke with natural resource officers when they visited her workplace and later spoke with The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity.

‘Targeting Independent Farmers’

“We’re all sick of the bureaucracy,” said Brad Chappell, president of the Vancouver Island Cattlemen’s Association, who owns a 410-acre cattle ranch in the Comox Valley. “What you have going on is akin to the politics of the Great Irish Potato Famine—one or more arms of the government are deliberately targeting independent farmers.”

Mr. Chappell, who registered his well by the deadline but uses dugouts to water forage crops for his cattle, said that due to a fish population protection order for the Tsolum River area on Vancouver Island, natural resource officers told him people could face hefty fines for drawing water from the river or their wells in that aquifer to irrigate forage crops such as grass for hay.

But prolonged dry conditions have already led to a serious hay shortage across B.C., which has also spiked prices. Some farmers are culling herds early or selling their animals because they can’t afford to feed them.

The Ehrlichs purchased a water cistern and paid to truck in water after enforcement of the restrictions. They currently feed 50 families a week through their community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. But after doing the math they realized that if they had to pay for water, their farm wouldn’t be viable.

“If we had to develop infrastructure to collect rainwater, we’d have to charge our customers three times what they pay now. It’s just not sustainable,” Ms. Ehrlich said.

The Ministry of Forests says users without a licence or a pending application are subject to phased enforcement, generally starting with a warning letter prior to action including orders to stop withdrawing water.

“These decisions are always made as an absolute last resort—because we recognize the very real impact that this has on farmers and their businesses,” Jason Tollman, public affairs officer with the ministry, said in an email to The Epoch Times.

He said severe drought conditions are affecting several B.C. watersheds and putting salmon and trout populations at risk.

Enforcement

Critics such as Sonia Furstenau, Green Party leader and MLA for Cowichan Valley, say that the provincial government failed to do enough to reach people affected by the new requirements and that farmers have been subjected to a “botched” government plan.

“I’ve been raising this issue with the NDP government since 2019 and proposing solutions at every turn how to avoid this outcome, and I’m furious the ministry and the minister of forests have allowed this to unfold in the way it has,” Ms. Furstenau told The Tyee.

Ms. Ehrlich agrees it could have been done differently.

“They chose to implement the licence system and to use disciplinary action, instead of working with the community, which they could have done when they saw that people weren’t signing up,” she said.

While Mr. Tollman said phased enforcement generally starts with a warning letter prior to regulatory and enforcement action, the Ehrlichs say they never received a warning letter.

They also say they submitted an application back in 2020 but the ministry has no record of it. In a number of other cases as well, farmers said they had submitted applications but the ministry didn’t have a record of them and sent out enforcement orders to stop using groundwater. 

Drought

The BC government has declared a widespread drought in the province, with most of B.C.’s water basins at drought level 4 or 5 as of Aug. 24, where 5 is the highest level. The province has also declared a state of emergency to tackle wildfires.

Some long-term Vancouver Island residents say conserving water in the summers has been a reality for them for years, questioning why new measures are needed.

“Every well owner we know, including us, has conserved water every summer,” Lorene Benoit, an acreage owner in Glenora, said in an interview. “We get drought every year in July and August.”

Still others, such as Alison Nicholson with the Cowichan Watershed Board, who lives on the Koksilah watershed, said people are reporting changes in well-water levels and that her own well doesn’t recharge as quickly as it used to.

“Change is really hard, but it needs to happen,” she told The Epoch Times.

While Ms. Nicholson agrees with the regulations, she also sympathizes with farmers and said a new Koksilah water sustainability planning process, being jointly undertaken by the government and Cowichan Tribes, will look at how water is managed and allocated throughout the watershed. Community advisory tables will also study and provide advice on what the priorities should be.

“Food security is a high priority but there’s a limited amount of water, so we have to decide how it’s going to be allocated” she said.

In May, the B.C. government said it planned to invest more than $200 million in food security to ensure people have better access to an increased supply of affordable, local food.

“The best thing the government can do to support local farming is to make sure they have access to water and provide funding for infrastructure to collect water,” says Ms. Ehrlich.

Cornelis van Kooten, an economics professor and the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Studies and Climate at the University of Victoria, says authorities should have done more over the past years to have better storage and supply of water in these circumstances.

“The lack of irrigation water for farmers is a result of government failure—a failure to build appropriate infrastructure for storing and supplying water to residents in the face of a rapidly growing population,” van Kooten told The Epoch Times.

“The construction industry cannot keep pace with the demand for new homes, yet the government seems unprepared to build new, safe, and adequate sources of drinking water.”