EDITORIAL: WATER: You can float a national conference on it!

In Atlantic Canada (in other words, API territory) we have more than a passing acquaintance with water. We're familiar with the great Atlantic waters that cradle us, we're at home with the ponds, lakes, streams, rivers and wetlands that form our familiar landscape, and we are knowledgeable about the aquifers that lie beneath our soil.

This year our planning organization has the opportunity of looking at the national and global aspects of water through CIP2000, starting June 18 in Charlottetown. Atlantic Planners Institute is convening. PEI Branch is making local arrangements and NS Branch, with assistance from representatives in all branches, is attending to program matters.

In recognition of API's interest in CIP2000, this issue of Planners Pen gives significant space to the subject of the conference, in columns devoted to water issues and activities in each of the Atlantic Provinces. We trust that this will whet planners' appetite for broad discussion of the substantial water issues facing every part of the globe as we begin our new millennium.

In surveys made a few years ago, each Canadian was shown to use an average of 326 litres of water each day, just indoors! But only 10% of a Canadian's home water supply is used in the kitchen and as drinking water. About 65% occurs in the bathroom, where it appears that the toilet is the biggest culprit.

Water studies also reveal indoor water use peaks twice a day - mornings and evenings. Outdoors, the biggest peaks of the year occur in the summer, when more than half Of all municipally treated water is sprayed onto lawns. Large communities use more water per capita because the diversity of water uses increases with size.

We Canadians use more water per person than most other countries. Although most of us don't stop to give it much thought, we should have no difficulty with the concept thal water is a basic necessity of life, not only for us but also for every type of plant and animal. Water accounts for about 65% of our body weight, and if we lose more than 12% of it, we die. But water isn't only for our survival -it also contributes to the quality of our lives in various immeasurable ways. Humans have harnessed water since the dawn of time. The very history of civilization is intertwined with stories of ingenious ways we humans make water work. Seven millennia ago our ancient forebears irrigated their crops. Archaeological digs reveal masonry sewers dating back almost 5000 years. And water-flushed toilets weren't long in following.

Canada is estimated to have 20 percent of the globe's freshwater resources, including glaciers and polar ice caps in their frozen state. It follows, therefore, that we may be somewhat blase in our regard for what is, in many other countries, an extremely scarce resource. In the world news this spring, we are once again assailed by horrific stories of a third world nation in drought, with millions of lives in peril.

Commodity experts are now telling us that in the future more water users will compete for this planet's finite supply of fresh water. For planners and water resource managers this means we will have to be thinking in the long term (even in Canada) about increases in water efficiency and conservation. We will want to use our expertise to restore water quality after use. We will also want to apply our conservation skills to other forms such as energy conservation which is directly related to the use of water. In terms of water volume, power generation outranks all other water uses many times over.

We were reminded in an editorial of the March 1998 volume of this newsletter of the broad role that our planning profession implies:

"The key point is that land use planning does 'bend' the direction of the use of the one part of the biosphere (air, water and land), on which all life depends, which is in private hands. Ultimately what a plan does is to create a public role in the use and management of land 'Terra Firma' has much to do with the quality of the lives of people and, in the final analysis, this is what 'liveability' is all about "

It goes without saying that our actions on the land have a direct impact on the waters that surround, flow through and lie beneath that land. Planners have a responsibility to consider solutions to water issues in direct relation to their land use planning activities.

Planners also have a role in looking at the accumulated deterioration of water supply and sewerage systems, and developing ways to make up for years of indifference and neglect that community infrastructure and water resources have suffered. If we do not address our past mistakes now, we add to an already large environmental mortgage.

Communities tend to take their water for granted. They undervalue this precious resource, they overuse it. and often abuse it. They are deceived by the apparent abundance of water. Apparently the capacity of our lakes and rivers - and even of the oceans - to absorb the abuse they receive is much more limited than once believed.

As one old slogan says: "Let's keep it on tap for the future."

Atlantic Planners Institute

This page and all contents are produced by the Atlantic Planners Institute, an affiliate of the Canadian Institute of Planners.

This document was last modified on November 15, 2000.