Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it First Nation hosted a Symposium on watershed health on June 5, to discuss the impact of drought and water shortages in the Elk Valley.
The event brought Indigenous communities, business owners, non-profits, scientists, and municipal and provincial government officials together to discuss challenges related to watershed health including drought, pollution and climate change.
50 attendees gathered together to listen to keynote speeches and a panel discussion.
Yaq̓ it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it councillor Kyle Shottanana opened the event with a speech on the sacredness of water, and president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs Stewart Phillip delivered powerful words on the importance of taking action and creating a better world for the next generation.
Participants in the panel included University of Lethbridge biology and environmental science professor Dr. Stewart Rood and study board member of the International Joint Commission for the Elk-Kootenai/y Dr. Stella Swanson.
Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it has faced challenges with access to clean drinking water and water shortages, which has made development on the reserve difficult.
"We are surrounded by so many springs that no longer allow our people to take drinking water. We have to go through a water tower system," said councillor Shottanana.
"It puts us in an area where we're not even able to think about development, building houses to bring our people back, because of the lack of available drinking water. It's a huge issue," he added.
Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it is working on developing creative solutions to water issues. The community is overseeing a project to restore and increase the volume of water in Shottanana Lake, south of Grasmere. Efforts have focused on deepening the basin of the lake and loosening compacted soil to restore connection between the lake's surface water and the groundwater springs that feed it.
"Over the years, we noticed that the water had started to disappear. We thought that annual rainfall was the reason. That was the first blame, but we did a little bit more digging," said Shottanana. "We dug and happened to come across an underground spring. The plan was to remove the crust on the bottom of the lake, that was a mixture of clay and dirt that actually held the water in."
Shottanana said that they've seen successful results so far, and the water has begun to replenish.
Executive Director of Living Lakes Canada Kat Hartwig said that as climate change progresses, the Kootenay region will see worse periods of drought, particularly as less snowpack accumulates in the mountains.
An update from the provincial government, released in May, revealed the provincial snowpack was well below average this year at 61 per cent of normal, and the East Kootenay was even lower at 32 per cent of normal. This follows a multi-year trend of declining snow accumulation.
More globally, Hartwig referenced a scientific study that found that soil is losing its ability to retain moisture as the climate warms. Statistics from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts suggest that from 2000 to 2002, soil moisture declined by roughly 1,614 gigatonnes, followed by a 1009-gigatonne loss from 2003 to 2016, which is even greater than Greenland’s ice loss.
Hartwig said she'd like to see policies updated and provide decision-makers with more information so they can make the right choices regarding water use.
"I think we need to look at all the cumulative impacts impacting our surface water and what's happening with snowpack and the melting glaciers that are anticipated to be gone within the next couple of decades," said Hartwig. "Our land use practices also are not necessarily complementary to a future that's got water scarcity issues, so I feel like our policies are probably a little bit behind in terms of what's actually happening."
"Part of the intention of that collaborative, was to examine how we make sure we provide knowledge and data on water quality to decision makers," she added. "There seems to be some gaps in terms of the decisions that are being made and information that we have and so mostly I think we want to explore what those gaps are and how we can address this more robustly," she explained.
