Heat waves. Water shortages. Droughts. Signs of summer. At least in the Pacific Northwest it seems like a distant memory. We are in the middle of what feels to most like an endless supply of rainy and windy days. Yes, we are stuck right in the middle of another typical fall cycle of weather with storm system after storm system cycling in from the Pacific. We are now stuck with major flooding, power outages, heavy snowfall in the mountains (most of Vancouver is heaving a sigh of relief over this particular point), 4pm darkness and general misery all-round. How quickly we forget!
While most of BC is stuck somewhere between the memory of our record breaking summer and the upcoming Olympics, we find ourselves remembering what a heap of rain means for our water systems. Nevermind the flooding basements and streets, the reservoirs supplying the Metro Vancouver water supply are back to being susceptible to landslides and the resultant high turbidity. The Capilano reservoir has been taken out of service due to extremely high turbidity and the Seymour reservoir is currently sitting at 3.7 NTUs, well in excess of the 0.1 NTU goal. If this rain keeps up and the freezing levels creep up the mountainside in the next week as expected, the risk of even higher turbidity starts to remind us of the boil water advisory over 2 million of us went through two years ago. Could we be in for a repeat?
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