By Robb Magley, in the Driftwood, 28 October 2026
The lakes that supply about half of Salt Spring’s drinking water have entered “uncharted territory,” according to officials, as continuing dry conditions have forced extended restrictions on water use for the island’s largest water district — and several of its smallest.
A welcome rainy weekend that dropped more than 25 millimetres of precipitation across the island will have scarcely registered at Maxwell and St. Mary lakes, where officials said dry soil in each watershed is likely to absorb most of that moisture.
Those lakes supply more than 1,800 North Salt Spring Waterworks District (NSSWD) customers — and in St. Mary’s case, another 321 in the Highland-Fernwood Water System and a handful of private lakeside licences — with hundreds more drinking from Cusheon Lake via the Beddis Water system and Lake Weston through Fulford Water.
But while both Beddis Water and the meterless Fulford Water are currently under no use restrictions, Highland-Fernwood is under Stage 3 — and the groundwater-supplied Cedars of Tuam and Cedar Lane systems are under Stage 4. And all island lakes will need more substantial rainfall to start recharging; NSSWD director of operations Ryan Moray told trustees Thursday, Oct. 22 the situation on Salt Spring was quickly evolving into something unprecedented.
“We’re reaching some new [historical levels] since we started logging this back in 2009,” said Moray, noting what had been just 7.3 mm of rain so far in October. “We’re truly in uncharted territory here, particularly for this time of year.”
NSSWD announced Tuesday, Oct. 20 that the dramatically low lakes and persistent drought have forced the district to keep their restrictions at the highest levels.
“This has been an exceptionally difficult year for our water supply,” said NSSWD board chair Steve Lam, “and we recognize that Stage 4 restrictions are challenging for our community.”
With 2026’s May-to-October rainfall totalling about 40 per cent of the five-year annual average, NSSWD trustees agreed they had little choice.
“Every bit of water saved helps us manage through this drought,” said Lam. “Our board is also looking beyond the immediate situation, making the investments needed to build a more resilient and reliable water system for the future.”
Those investments include the new $14.6-million water treatment plant under construction at Maxwell Lake, which despite a partial pause from a building permit conflict last week is on track to complete by May 2027. They also include an upgrade to the Crofton Pump Station, which will allow the Maxwell and St. Mary sides of the large system to shift water as needed. With an agreement officially signed, NSSWD will be receiving $7.7 million for those two projects through the federal government’s Build Communities Strong Fund.
But historically low levels at St. Mary Lake have urgently complicated matters right downstream, as the water has dropped so low it’s not spilling over the top of the existing weir at all — and a “bypass” channel leading to a specialized fish ladder and pipe into Duck Creek was this year partially blocked by silt, requiring a dredging operation.
During the town hall portion of the board’s meeting Thursday, retired hydrologist Dave Gooding told trustees that “mud plug” is attributable to the weir itself, slowing down water and allowing debris to settle out. When the weir is raised — the district expects construction to begin in 2027 — he recommended a “regular spring cleanout.”
That channel between the lake and weir was spruced up in early October, under guidance from an environmental monitor and surveyor to make sure the work actually brought the channel back to its original design profile. And despite finding water coming to a halt downstream of where the district was authorized to work, Moray told trustees that after a site inspection, a Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) senior biologist said the federal regulators were satisfied — and believed those high points would eventually flood through as winter rainfall increased.
In the meantime, trustees mulled possible “emergency” measures that might put some St. Mary Lake water into Duck Creek, briefly discussing bringing a generator to the site to pump at about half the creek’s “environmental flow need” rate — the equivalent of about 100,000 gallons per day, a move staff said DFO did not currently support.
While that seemed like a lot of water compared to a household’s use, Gooding — who works with the Island Stream and Salmon Enhancement Society — noted that even if such a pump was left running for a month, given St. Mary’s expansive surface area it would likely represent at most a fraction of a centimetre of lake level overall.
But, as trustee Sandra Ungerson pointed out, that works both ways. It takes just as large an amount of rainfall across a relatively small watershed to raise that lake back up. This past winter St. Mary Lake started to drop from a high point in February, falling below the five-year average trend line almost immediately as the draw-down season began.
“If we don’t get the rain at the right time, in the right way, the lake does not refill properly,” said Ungerson. “To ‘go rogue’ and pump some water, just because you want to see how close you can get to that [flow rate] number, is irresponsible, in my opinion.”
Ultimately, trustees passed a motion directing staff to reach out to DFO and the province to “immediately explore and implement” any options for adding flow to the creek those entities might support.
Meanwhile, financial officer and office manager Tammy Lannan told the board that as early as May, she had been fielding a surprising number of calls from islanders interested in purchasing bulk water — a service NSSWD hasn’t provided in over a decade — with some outside the district reporting their wells had run dry.
NSSWD is holding a last-resort card to play for customers: an emergency low-level drawdown permit for St. Mary Lake, should it need to use water after the lake reaches the 40-metre mark. As of Oct. 22, according to staff, the level was at 40.07.
“This is the lowest the lake has been since I’ve been here, that I’ve ever seen at this time of year,” said Lannan. “Out of all the times we’ve applied for the [drawdown] permit, this is the only year that I’ve actually felt there’s a really good chance that we’re going to need to use it.”