Multi-year B.C. drought inevitable

Jonathan Fowlie
Vancouver Sun
February 16, 2005

COMMENT: Amidst all the media attention on budgets, Kyoto and - we hope - the BCUC Duke Point EPA decision - this piece in today's Vancouver Sun should not be overlooked.

Concerned as we are with electricity in BC, a prolonged series of years of low water will reduce the capacity of the hydroelectric system both for domestic energy demand and for revenue sales. Although this article does not say we are in such a period of drought, there are some worrisome indicators. CBC this morning was saying Mt. Baker has only 25% of its normal snow-pack for this time of year. While it has been wet, that water is not being retained in the mountains, in the form of snow.

The budget yesterday indicates that the government is expecting BC Hydro to contribute $395 million in 2005/06 vs $310 million in the 2004/05 revised forecast. This money comes directly from electricity rates paid in BC and from the energy trading that Powerex engages in - mainly sales in the US. (The budget also includes $250 million from the Columbia River Treaty Downstream Benefits, and $320 million from water rents - money Hydro pays government for its use of the reservoir and river systems). Hydro must make its best efforts to get that money from somewhere, and to ensure adequate supplies of electricity.

That'll exert pressure to increase electricity rates, to increase energy trading for revenue generation, and to build the lowest cost generation capacity possible.

Think coal.

Action items:

1. There's an election underway in BC. The Liberals have set things up for coal-fired generation to be moved to the front burner once they are secure in another term in government. Make sure coal-fired generation is an issue in your riding, and that candidates take a position on it.

2. Write to the Minister of Sustainable Resource Management and the Executive Director of the Environmental Assessment Office, and demand that coal-fired generation projects undergo a full environmental assessment, regardless how small they are. This is acutely important for the first project. For more background on coal-fired generation in BC, see http://tinyurl.com/626zt

Tree rings show Columbia Basin had six major droughts in 200 years

B.C. will "almost certainly" suffer a major multi-year drought, says a co-author of a study who wonders if water regulators and other large-scale users will be ready to handle the shortage.

"It's sort of a wake-up call," said Dave Peterson of the U.S. Agriculture Department, one of the authors of a report looking at 250 years of historical drought data.

"Most of our water reallocation and planning for water resources has been based on the last 50 years or so, which has been historically a wet period of time," he said, explaining this has made it difficult for regulators to envision, and plan for, a true worst-case scenario.

The study, published in the December issue of the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, looks at tree ring data from 32 sites across the Columbia River Basin in the U.S. and Canada to determine years when droughts took place.

It found the basin area experienced six severe multi-year droughts between 1750 and 1950, including one that lasted 12 years around the 1840s. There have been no severe multi-year droughts since 1950.

Peterson said it is impossible to predict when a drought of such magnitude could take place again, but the historical data suggest such an event occurs on a continuous cycle, and therefore is more than likely to happen again.

He added that while the data comes from the Columbia River Basin, the trend can be extended to other areas of B.C. as well.

"When we have these really big multi-year droughts, we can expect them to cover a pretty broad area across western North America," he said.

As part of its drought plan, the B.C. government contributed $2 million to local water suppliers in the summer and fall of 2004 so they could develop water conservation or drought management plans.

Representatives from the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection could not be reached on Tuesday, but other organizations say they are aware of the possibility of multi-year droughts.

A spokeswoman for BC Hydro, which relies heavily on water for hydroelectric power generation, said she could not provide a detailed response to the report because it would take time to analyse.

In an e-mail, however, Charmane Edwards said BC Hydro takes into account "a range of possible weather conditions, including multi-year droughts" when doing its projections.

She said the utility has large storage reservoirs that can help carry the supply through dry years.

"In addition," Edwards said, "these reservoirs are located in different geographic regions with varying weather patterns, further reducing the risk of concurrent drought conditions."

At the Greater Vancouver Regional District, senior engineer Stan Woods said the region's planning department looks very closely at water levels, including work similar to the report done by Peterson and his colleagues.

He said the district has 90 years of records, and is therefore in a better situation than other utilities to identify and plan for worst-case scenarios.

Explaining that multi-year drought simply means a sustained level of below-average precipitation, Woods said the GVRD is currently equipped to handle such an occurrence because of the level of water supply compared to demand.

"At this time we don't see that our backs are up against the wall," he said, adding this is the case even though some snow stations are currently recording record lows.

But he said some other areas are in a situation where they are closer to their maximum supply, and are having to act accordingly.

For example, he said, an area of Victoria came close to its supply level recently because of an increase in population and demand. He said that area was able to raise a dam to increase its supply.

DRY TIMES:

Scientists used tree-ring data to determine major droughts in the Columbia River Basin over the past 250 years. They found:

- A 12-year drought starting in the 1840s

- Severe drought in the 1930s

- Periods of low flows in 1775, 1805, 1890 and 1925, which each varied from three to five years.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005