Investing in Our Watershed’s Health

Anecologically healthy and functioning watershed is an important natural resource for our region, and it provides many beneficial services, the most important of which is the slowing, cleaning, filtering, and storing of water. The Cowichan region’s rivers, streams, wetlands, lakes, forests, and groundwater aquifers are all important and vital components of our watershed system. Unfortunately, our changing climate is putting increased pressure on the overall health of our watershed, as we are seeing an overall trend towards longer and hotter summers and less critical snowpack accumulation during the winter. Combined, these factors amount to less water being able to move through the system, which puts the ecological health of its many components in jeopardy.

A case in point is the Cowichan River, although the Koksilah and Chemainus rivers are also facing their own challenging conditions. The Cowichan River is fed by Cowichan Lake, which in turn is fed on all sides by many different streams, carrying water from the nearby mountains and their respective snowpacks. The lake acts as a kind of “bank,” storing vast quantities of water for the river to carry down through the Cowichan Valley and all the way to the ocean in Cowichan Bay. As a part of the trend brought on by a warming climate, our “bank” is seeing less deposits and more withdrawals on its water storage. The trend for the first few months of this year have already raised concerns on how long adequate flows can be maintained come the summer months.

Many readers will be familiar with weir that is situated at the mouth of the Cowichan River in the community of Lake Cowichan. The weir is used at certain times of the year to reduce the flow into the river to control how much water is emptied from the lake. There are serious efforts in play now to raise the height of the weir so that more lake water supply can be held back and strategically used during the dry summer months to allow for more ecologically healthy flows.

Our region is incredibly lucky to have a significant number of very dedicated people who are working towards a solution to this very real problem. Many of them are involved in the Cowichan Watershed Board and the Cowichan Stewardship Roundtable, and they bring a level of passion, commitment, and expertise that I very truly value.

The federal government has a very real role to play in seeing this vision come to a reality. As the Member of Parliament for this region, I’ve long advocated for this straightforward solution to our water woes, and I look forward to continuing work with constituents to see it through the home stretch.