Water Shortages in a Country Full of Water: The Rivers around Montreal at Record Low Levels for Early Summer

At dinner last night with Elin and Emmanuel (a late Father's Day for Lee or maybe an early one for Emmanuel,) he told us about the shallow water in the Lachine canal. That's where he's working currently, at the Parks Canada National Historic Site which marks the take-off point for the canoes of the fur trade in the late 18th and early 19th century. It seems the water is now as low as it usually is in late August, which may present problems for some of their animations. He said they were told that evaporation over the winter on the Great Lake which didn't freeze as much as usual, as well as dry weather, have caused the drop in water levels.

Then this morning, the news talks about an emergency project to cut a deeper channel so that water in the river which flows around the top of Montreal island will increase. The root cause is the same at the Lachine canal, but here dropping water means that drinking water intakes for 11 municipalities may find themselves high and dry before the summer is over. Sewage outlets could also find themselves discharging some distance from the water flow, unless the volume of water increases.

The project is only a stop gap, according to Guy Garand, corrdinator of the local environment council. He told Le Devoir that what is needed is a "real" policy of water management that takes into account water conservation and measures to safeguard wet lands and increase water retention. He didn't say it, but the situation conjures up a scenario where the sewage water of one little town is taken in for purification and use a little further downstream.

A somewhat troubling thought, but why not face the problem head on, the way that Singapore has been trying to do? Partly because of concerns about Malaysia cutting off fresh water supplies to the island nation (which, coincidentally is about the size of Montreal with four times the population) Singapore has several water-reclamation projects. One involves stocking purified sewage water in big lakes, from where it is used for industry and consumer use.