Nith Valley EcoBoosters aiming to educate Wilmot residents on water woes

By Lee Griffi

The Nith Valley EcoBoosters (NVEB) are hosting an in-person and online event next week to educate residents on the growing concerns surrounding the water supply in Wilmot and the Region of Waterloo.

The group is a not-for-profit, volunteer, non-partisan organization made up of community members. Their core mission is to promote a healthy, sustainable environment and work through education, action and collaboration.

The organization has enlisted the support of Dr. Hugh Simpson, a hydrologist with 30 years of experience in groundwater-resources management and protection.

Tom Knezevich is the organization’s chair and explained the number one reason to hold the event is due to concerns over water capacity.

“People, including myself, are hearing conflicting and confusing stories. Some people are saying one thing, other people are saying something different. It's difficult for people to sort through all of these stories and try to figure out, ‘Okay, I'm not exactly sure what's going on here and what's true and what isn't.’ ”

He added the goal is to take a very complex issue and hopefully simplify it to help people understand what is happening with their water supply.

“Okay, now I understand what the issues are, why this happened perhaps and what can we do to solve it? And then the final reason we're doing it really is different than the water-capacity issue.”

Knezevich added while the capacity is significant, he hopes to get people talking about ways to save water.

“It's very important for all of us as individuals to think about water conservation. I can remember 10, 20 years ago, there was a lot of talk about it. We were all concerned about making sure we had the right toilets and not running our water when brushing our teeth, and that's gone away.”

Simpson isn’t only a hydrogeologist, but someone who worked in the region and has historical knowledge.

“I worked for the region from 1992 to about 2000. The rural farming community was my bailiwick, so mostly private wells and protecting our water supply, which a lot of it comes from places where there are some very large capacity wells. What I've been noticing in news articles is they have been very fragmented. They come from very narrow, particular perspectives, looking at a little part of the problem.”

He added part of the problem with the water system comes from personnel changes, citing the retirement of Ken Sealing as regional chair.

“We saw a break in the CAO's office from being an engineer who really understood things from a technical point of view, but also a person with a strong connection to the rural community. Ken came out of Elmira and Woolwich Township. And no disrespect to the current councillors, the current senior staff, but they don't have that sort of history with the community.”

Simpson added the hiring of more communications staff, who he said are doing less communicating, is also an issue.

“I even hear it in some of the people speaking on behalf of the region in an elected or senior staff capacity, where they're clearly reading prepared text, because nobody speaks that way.”

He added he has been through risk-communication training and recognizes the cadence, the tone and the structure to be calm.

“There's nothing to worry about, we're handling this, and then over to what they want to talk about and moving you carefully away from what they don't want to talk about. There is a legitimate concern from some residents that their wells could run dry, and digging deeper comes at a huge expense, normally in the five-figure range,” Simpson said.

There is an incredible amount of information coming from multiple sources on this issue, be it government, community groups, developers and those directly affected by decreasing well levels. Knezevich is hoping he and Simpson can provide easy-to-understand facts.

“This is really complex. We need somebody to take all this information and give it to us at a Grade 8 education level because that's what the general public needs,” Knezevich said. “This is getting too confusing and complex.”

Knezevich added he’s not sure the pair will quite be able to reach a Grade 8 level, but he is confident people will leave with a better understanding of the big picture.

“And of course, from the perspective of the Nith Valley EcoBoosters, we want them to leave also with that little bit of a message that people need to take some responsibility here to make sure that we don't go crazy with our water consumption.”

Simpson said there needs to be more collaboration on dealing with the water issues in Wilmot and the Region of Waterloo.

“What I see is something that would be like a visioning process where our regional and local municipal leaders really create something formal to look at this. One thing would be to lobby the provincial government to get our regional policy planning authority back because we will do it much better here.”

Rather than taking direction from Queen's Park, Simpson the region should be deciding these things locally.

“I've been here since the late 1980s, and I've always been happy to live here. And I've always felt that there was a really good, solid community idea about what the community looked like, but I think it's kind of fraying a little bit with this undermining of legislation and protections that we've had for generations here.”

The event is free, but pre-registration is required by visiting www.nvecoboosters.com or https://bit.ly/2026water. It takes place on Tuesday, April 21, from 7-9 p.m. at Zion United Church at 215 Peel St. in New Hamburg. It will also be broadcast live online and a recording will be available on YouTube after a few days.