BCers to Province: Stop the Senseless Water Giveaway
Surrey residents pay $1,630 per million litres; why not Nestle or frackers?
“The province is not seeking to make a profit from water.” — BC Environment Minister Mary Polak
No kidding — not at $2.25 per million litres of cold, clean B.C. water!
But seriously minister, do you think that waiting till 2016 just to start charging multinational giant Nestle, other water bottlers, oil and gas frackers, amusement parks, garbage dumps and everyone else who wants millions of litres of water is appropriate?
Because tens of thousands of British Columbians are outraged their province will be giving away water for pennies. And until then it’s free.
Forget about making a profit — when Nestle can buy their 265 million litres for $596.25 — you aren’t even covering the cost of government writing up and mailing the invoice!
And Polak is actually proud of it.
“We don’t sell water. We charge administration fees for the management of that resource,” she toldthe Legislature in February without any hint of irony.
But Surrey residents pay $1.63 per 1,000 litres at home; at those rates Nestle would instead be paying $1,630 per million litres and over $431,950 for what it bottled last year.
And Vancouver’s flat water rate for non-metered houses is $568 this year.
Drought, outrage set in
So the Nestle giveaway is why last week’s column went viral.
And it’s also why a petition from consumer activists SumOfUs.org has over 200,000 signatures demanding B.C. charge higher water rates.
But there’s a faint hope clause — the B.C. Legislature just returned for an emergency sitting to pass laws allowing Petronas to develop its liquefied natural gas project.
If the BC Liberal government cared as much about B.C. water as they obviously do about LNG we could get the water rates increased in less than a week with opposition party cooperation.
Water is in exceedingly short supply as the heat wave and drought continue to force more H2O restrictions.
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