| Water Management |
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The Town of Canmore is committed to planning for a sustainable community and to being leaders in environmental stewardship.
Click here to read the Complete Water Management chapter Or click on any of the following subsections: Desired Future State WHY CONSERVE WATER? Seven tenths of our bodies are water, but this does not reflect our attitude to this precious natural element. Water is being constantly recycled by the natural processes of the planet. Millions of gallons are evaporated and desalinated by the sun from the land and oceans every day and then returned to the earth's rivers, lakes and groundwater through rain and snow. This cycle has maintained conditions for life on earth for millions of years. But the majority of us post-industrial humans have, to a large extent, lost contact with natural cycles. Water appears miraculously at the tap and conveniently disappears about 30 centimetres later down the plughole, to be dealt with; cleaned, treated with chemicals and often zapped with ultraviolet light, finally reappearing at the tap. This is a cycle imposed upon water in urban areas; unnatural, polluting and wasteful. Ultimately, the fresh water available to you as a user depends upon the amounts of rainfall, local hydrology and the geology in your area. If we take out more water than the natural system will allow then this leads to a lowering of the water table and possible dramatic effects upon water quality, future water supplies and agriculture. This also has harmful consequences for the wildlife/amenity value of the landscape, reducing flowing rivers to muddy puddles. Faced with the problems of over abstraction from natural water bodies the knee-jerk reaction is to construct more reservoirs. This solution again impacts heavily upon the wildlife/amenity value of natural landscapes and also alters the hydrology of the area. The sane alternative to this tinkering response is to use the water you have in a sustainable way by conserving and recycling it. Value your water supply! To sustain a reasonable quality of living requires about 80 litres of water per person per day. But the average consumption ranges from 5.4 litres (barely enough to live on) in parts of low rainfall countries during the dry season, to up to 500 litres per person per day in parts of North America. Much of this extra use is carelessly wasteful. In Canmore we use about 389 litres per person per day. EASY THINGS YOU CAN DO There are many easy things you can do to conserve water and help us meet our goal! Click here for more information OTHER USEFUL WEBSITES… The Government of Canada: |
