By Kristi Patton – Penticton Western News

The RDOS must decide on water quality improvements for the residents of West Bench

The ball remains in the City of Penticton’s court regarding what will happen with the West Bench water system.

“It is being discussed in camera at this time. The regional district and the city are working very hard on this proposal,” said regional district chair and Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton.

Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen Area F director Michael Brydon said the RDOS has basically two options: build its own ultraviolet treatment plant for the West Bench and Sage Mesa or work out an agreement with the city to provide filtered water from its system.

The RDOS is waiting to hear back on a proposal to buy bulk water from Penticton, a decision that Brydon said was delayed because of the election.

“The RDOS would buy treated water at the foot of Westminster Avenue and then we run the water utility,” said Brydon. “We run the water utility no matter where the water comes from. The question now is does it come from the City of Penticton or from our own little treatment plant.”

West Bench residents voted against receiving filtered water from Penticton in 2010 because it came at a higher cost than building their own treatment plant. Brydon said that proposal would have seen Penticton take over the whole system, and neither side seemed “too comfortable with that.”

Last week, at the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen board table, the City of Penticton was awarded the West Bench operations and maintenance contract in the amount of $52,703.40 plus taxes.

“It is a continuation of the contract to operate the West Bench water system,” said Brydon. “The West Bench Irrigation District entered into this contract a few years back and we are just continuing it for another year while we wait for the larger West Bench water upgrade project to be sorted out.”

This contract extension means the City of Penticton will continue to monitor the pump house and be on call for residential emergencies among other duties.

“The RDOS staff does not currently have the capacity to take on another system. In addition, the West Bench system is old and quirky, so the experience the Penticton staff has gained with the system over the last few years was an important factor in our decision to stick with them.”

VANCOUVER — The sight of homeowners setting their drinking water on fire is pretty dramatic.

Fracking - no direct link found with well water contamination: U of T scientist

But scientists say the controversial and fast-growing energy sector practice of “fracking” to get at natural gas pockets underground has been unfairly blamed for the contamination.

It is more likely the flammable water, reported by some people living near some U.S. fracking operations, is linked to ground spills and problems that are not unique to the process also known as hydraulic fracturing, says Chip Groat of the University of Texas.

He led a study, released here Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, that found “no direct connection” between groundwater contamination and fracking.

The process, used in many parts of the U.S. and Western Canada, pumps millions of litres of water and chemicals deep underground to fracture rock and extract natural gas.

It has fueled widespread concern about groundwater contamination, with some landowners pointing to their flammable tap water as evidence.

“They were able to set the water on fire, so something in going on,” says Groat.

But he and his colleagues could find no link between the flammable tap water and the fracking process going on thousands of metres underground.

Their study, which looked at areas where fracking has taken place in Texas, Pennsylvania and New York, found that the groundwater contamination often can be traced to above-ground spills or mishandling of wastewater associated with the gas extraction process.

“These problems are not unique to hydraulic fracturing,” says Groat, who undertook the study to try separate “fact from fiction.” It was funded by the Energy Institute at University of Texas.

Hydraulic fracturing been described as a “game-changer” since it could provide enough clean and affordable natural gas to meet North America’s energy needs for decades to come.

“I think it is, in fact, a revolution,” says Groat.

Given the enormous potential he and his colleagues say it is important to better understand and monitor the impacts. Along with groundwater contamination, there are concerns fracking operations are producing huge amounts of waste water and releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. It also has been linked to seismic activity.

Fracking has been associated with many small earthquakes in northeastern British Columbia. The earthquakes ranged from 2.5 to 3.5 on the Richter scale, which is not enough to cause damage.

“Small to potentially moderate-size earthquakes have been triggered by the re-injection of waste water during the fracking process,” says geologist John Claque, from Simon Fraser University, who will discuss the issue at the conference Friday.

“Large earthquakes are unlikely, but one cannot completely rule them out,” he said by email.

Clague sees “possible water contamination” as the larger issue.

“My advice is to focus to the risks to drinking water and the greenhouse gas implications of fracking,” he says.

Environmental concerns have slowed fracking in some areas and have led to moratoriums in Quebec and New Jersey.

Groat says groundwater contamination in some areas probably can be traced to natural sources that were present before the onset of shale gas operations.

But the lack of data on what the groundwater was like before fracking operations started “hobbles” efforts to evaluate the impacts.

Fracking, says Clague, is “a case of science lagging behind technology.”

* Rivers, reservoirs running low after two dry winters 

Low rainfall leads to drought warning in the UK

LONDON, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Large parts of Britain are facing a drought this year after groundwater reached levels not seen for more than 35 years, which could spell restrictions for farmers and households.

Rivers, canals and reservoirs are running low after a second dry winter in a row, with some areas receiving less than 70 percent of normal amounts.

Ministers are meeting on Monday with water companies, the environment agency, weather forecasters and agricultural bodies to see what can be done to mitigate its impact and prevent future droughts.

“Unfortunately … there is a high risk that parts of the country will almost certainly be in drought next summer,” Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said on her department’s website.

While Scotland has seen its heaviest rainfall since records began 100 years ago and Wales and northwest England have been relatively wet, other parts of England have had their driest 12 months on record, with central and eastern England particularly affected.

Central England has seen about 70 percent of its average rainfall, or less.

Two water companies, Anglian Water and Southern Water, have been forced to apply for drought permits, allowing them to take water from new sources.

South East Water has applied for a drought order, which goes further and restricts the non-essential use of water. About 65,000 properties are at risk of standpipes or rota cuts to supply.

Unless England sees more rainfall, many more households face rationing, such as hosepipe bans, though authorities are not yet talking about people having to queue for water, as they did in many parts of Britain during a heatwave in 1976.

There is also a concern that food prices may rise if Britain’s wheat production is damaged, as well as other foodstuffs.

“While last year it was principally the farmers that were affected by the dry winter … I think it is more likely that the public water supply will be affected unless we have substantial rainfall between now and the summer,” Spelman told BBC radio.

She said a hosepipe ban had only been prevented last year because the water industry had invested in reducing leakages by 36 percent since the mid-1990s.

The dry weather has led to a higher-than-average number of environmental incidents such as fish being rescued, algal blooms, reduced cereal and potato yields, wildfires, and navigation restrictions.

Meanwhile, Britain has had unusually good soft fruit crops.

Monday’s meeting will discuss how water companies can better detect leaks, how farmers can share water resources and how livestock farmers can plan ahead for fodder and bedding supplies.

Transporting water to affected areas will not be on the agenda as it is expensive to carry over large distances, Spelman said.

The environment department is also working with agricultural and food sectors to improve irrigation technology, and develop more water efficient crops and markets for drought affected produce.