So it turns out there was something positive about the drought last summer.
Finally it appears that the need for conservation — yes, even here in Cowichan — has started to sink in and be taken to heart by a good portion of the valley’s population.
It’s hard to credit when we experience the kind of rainfall we’ve had over the last few months, but water is not an infinite resource, and during our summers it has become an infinitely precious, frighteningly finite one.
When sump pumps are flying off local shelves and it seems like every second day Cowichan Bay Road is closed because the pavement is under several feet of water, it can be hard to imagine the need to cut your shower a little short, or save the grey water from washing dishes.
But it was only short months ago when everything was so dry that the least spark threatened to turn into a conflagration, and the sun beating down on us did so through a haze of smoke from brush fires.
And our rivers were dangerously low on water, slowed in some places to a literal trickle.
Less robust waterways around the valley disappeared altogether until the fall rains replenished their courses once more.
We are encouraged that while people may have complained about the Cowichan Valley Regional District’s water restrictions, enough people followed them to make a notable difference in usage from just one year ago, when the valley was also under drought conditions.
The news that all of Chemainus, Mill Bay and the Municipality of North Cowichan’s South End and Crofton water systems marked significant conservation savings was welcome as we face down another summer that could well follow the hot, dry pattern of the last few.
While there’s a lot of rain falling now, there’s little snow pack (which stores and releases water), due to the relatively warm temperatures.
Chemainus residents deserve applause for cutting their water use by 25 per cent — that’s an astounding reduction of 650 litres per person per day.
Several other communities came close to the 20 per cent reduction number that all of the water systems are challenged to meet by 2018.
There can’t have been too many people getting out the power washer or leaving the hose running as they washed their car, in contravention of the restrictions we hit last year, with those numbers.
Those restrictions aren’t something we should see as iron-fisted government coming in and trying to take away our way of life, interfering in our homes.
They are something we need to do to preserve our precious water resource for the whole community.
