MLA defends province’s handling of Hullcar Aquifer

ARMSTRONG – The provincial government is being forced to address what it’s doing about a long running drinking water problem in Spallumcheen.

High levels of nitrates in one aquifer used as a drinking water source have triggered a water quality advisory and divided the community as some people blame a local farm.

Last month the province announced it had come up with a plan which was followed up by opposition MLAs making a high profile visit to the area. On Friday, the local Liberal MLA seemed happy to step in front of the camera and defend his government’s handling of the issue.

Greg Kyllo has two key points that he has been returning to: the MLA believes that decisions around how to deal with the problem of high nitrate levels should be based on facts and that it will take time to find out where the nitrates are coming from.

The MLA sees some reasons for optimism. He says test results that came in at the end of March were down .9 mg/L compared to numbers from the end of February, having dropped from 13.3 mg/L to 12.4 mg/L.

“We are definitely going in the right direction,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We are definitely going in the right direction," he said.

However, even that lower test result is still above the national guideline level of 10 mg/L.

Some residents don’t think the government’s current plan goes far enough.

“We made it quiet clear that an action plan is just background noise if there is no action and we want some action,” said Al Price with the Save Hullcar Aquifer Team in late March. “We’ve been waiting two years.”

Some believe the way a local farm handles manure is a significant contributor to the problem. There has been a call for a moratorium on the spreading of liquid manure on one of their fields.

“I would like to see [the province] start working with the farmer to switch his flush barn to a scraper barn,” said Price. “That would be a good start. It would be a good gesture and from there [we could] start to actually remediate the aquifer.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I would like to see [the province] start working with the farmer to switch his flush barn to a scraper barn," said Price. "That would be a good start. It would be a good gesture and from there [we could] start to actually remediate the aquifer."

When asked about this call for more action on the part of the farm, Kyllo talked about the need to make fact based decisions.

“Before we make any affirmative action we need to have a better understanding with specificity where those nitrates are actually coming from,” said Kyllo.

The province has also been criticized for allowing the farm to spread more manure effluent after nitrate levels in the aquifer were flagged as an issue.

In defending his government’s actions, Kyllo again said that decisions needed to be based on facts and that more information was needed about the sources of the nitrates.

“There are senior agrologists working within the Ministry of Agriculture that have a lot of expertise around trying to find that adequate balance between the need for providing nutrients for crop production as well as safe guarding our actual aquifers,” says Kyllo.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "There are senior agrologists working within the Ministry of Agriculture that have a lot of expertise around trying to find that adequate balance between the need for providing nutrients for crop production as well as safe guarding our actual aquifers," says Kyllo.

Kyllo says the farm has not made any further applications to spread effluent and that if another application is made the province will leave it up to scientists to decide whether more could be applied.

The province is planning to hold a public meeting on the issue April 14.