by Jeff Nield • Photo By Jenn Pentland

In southwestern BC we live in a perceived state of plenty. We have the most viable year-round growing conditions in Canada, and our landscape is in a perpetual state of lush green. To the west we hug the coast of the abundant Salish Sea, and are surrounded by mountains covered with innumerable rivers and streams to the east and north. And anyone who has lived through a Vancouver winter knows it can rain constantly for weeks at a time. All that water must make us plentiful in the stuff, right? Well, not exactly.

“People take water for granted.”  Leave it to a farmer to lay it out straight. The speaker is Chris Bodnar, a relatively new farmer who gave up a promising academic career to take to the land with his family. Bodnar amiably gives up 30 minutes of spring planting time to give me an overview of the water issues in the Fraser Valley. Turns out there are three things that farmers, and all of us really, have to worry about with water: too much, too little, and too dirty. Bodnar tells me that this year’s traditional flood watch season was different. Due to below-average snowpack in most parts of the province, the immediate concern for farmers skipped the “too much” stage and went directly to “too little.”

This spring, the provincial Ministry of Environment reported that, due to a dry April, drought conditions were likely this summer.  The Central and Northern Interior were classified as “dry” and the Southern Interior as “very dry.”  Fortunately, significant spring rainfall eased the situation somewhat, and in June the Southern Interior dodged drought, reclassifying the region as “dry.”

Drought itself doesn’t necessarily signify climate Armageddon; it’s simply a factor of year-to-year seasonal fluctuations. Nor is seasonal drought the only threat to our water supply. For the long-range outlook we need to dig a little deeper.

“Where our water comes from, and its safety, is the issue,” says Bodnar. This simple, poignant statement is perhaps the biggest concern for anyone growing or eating food. For a good chunk of farmers, the source for irrigation water is beneath their feet, in an aquifer. Aquifers are natural underground formations that are important around the world for agriculture, industry, and domestic consumption. In the United States, the Ogallala Aquifer covers 450,000 sq km underneath the Midwest and accounts for about 30 per cent of the groundwater used in irrigation in that country. Fraser Valley farmers, and those just south of the border, rely on the comparatively small 260 sq km Abbotsford-Sumas Aquifer, whose groundwater generally sits less than 100 metres below the surface. This relatively shallow depth, the heavy annual rainfall that causes leaching, and the fact that the aquifer is uncontained (no bedrock between water source and surface), mean that the groundwater is becoming increasingly contaminated.

And the big contaminant around here is nitrates—ironically, from farming. By the mid 90s, Bodnar says, 50 per cent more nitrogen was being applied as fertilizer to Fraser Valley fields than could be absorbed by the crops. The excess ends up in the aquifer. The Ministry of Agriculture agrees that nitrates are the biggest cause of contamination, but also points a finger at pesticides and volatile organic compounds from industrial solvents and degreasers. Whatever the cause, it stands to reason that if you irrigate crops with contaminated water, you end up with contaminated food.

So what’s an organic farmer to do?

In Bodnar’s perfect farming world it would rain once a week, on Sunday night, starting at about 9pm and it would keep raining until 5am on Monday morning, after about an inch had fallen (more in the winter to help replenish the groundwater). For now, since nature doesn’t seem to follow this schedule, he makes do with what his farm has to offer. “The surface water we have comes from pure sources that are very nearby,” he explains. “Most farms don’t have that luxury.” And it’s not just farms in the Fraser Valley that don’t have that luxury—around the world most farms rely on groundwater that they pump up and onto their crops—so a good number of aquifers are in danger of being contaminated or depleted. It is thought that the giant Ogallala could be dried up in 25 years if current practices are left unchecked. To ensure that our local source of water is kept as stable and as clean as possible, the cross-border Abbotsford-Sumas Aquifer Task Force is developing management practices and policy suggestions, along with educating industries and individuals who may affect the aquifer.

I keep coming back to Bodnar’s statement that people take water for granted—maybe because I include myself amongst the “people.” I don’t take long showers or water the moss and clover that double as a lawn, but I do assume that my tap will come on when I turn it, and that I’ll be able to do multiple loads of my kids’ laundry each day, not to mention quench my thirst on demand. I also fully expect to be able to buy food that is free of contaminants. If there’s a short-term drought or a flood, I can handle the inconvenience of altering my food choices according to what’s available. But it’s sobering to think our local farmers might have no choice but to use a water source that is contaminated even before it reaches their fields. If we demand now that local industry, including agriculture, becomes accountable for the environmental contamination they cause, perhaps in say, fifty years, our grandchildren and their grandchildren will be eating food grown with the purest water in the world.

Jeff Nield works with FarmFolk/CityFolk Society, where he encourages people to think about where their food comes from, how it’s produced, and how it gets to them.