Friday 2 October 2015

P.E.I.’s overuse of water severely affecting environment
Samantha Steele
Oct. 2, 2015

“There is a sustainable level you can take each year and it will be replenished but if you take more than that or taking too much from a small area, that’s when you get problems,” says Sarah Wheatley of the Winter River-Tracadie Bay watershed group.

The City of Charlottetown is using 18 million litres of water per day. The United Nations suggests 30-50 litres per person per day.

The Winter River watershed supplies all of Charlottetown’s water and though the tough winter helped replenish the wells quickly, the dry summer made the levels low once again.

Maude Barlow is the head chairperson on the Council of Canadians.

“We are doubling our intake of groundwater every 20 years around the world.”

Barlow is also the co-founder of the Blue Water Project, which sees water as a right not a privilege.

Barlow said that if we pumped the Great Lakes as mercilessly as we pump groundwater, the lakes would be bone dry in 80 years.
Water on P.E.I. is not just used only by the residents; agriculture and factories play a huge part as to why we rely solely on groundwater.

Gary Schneider is appalled on what those industries have done to our little province.


“I don’t care whose using the water…it’s what affect that has the aquatic ecosystem.”


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