Gibsons provides ‘good news’ at international conference

Outside Town of Gibsons Well No. 1, Dave Newman and Norma Brow bottle ‘the good stuff’ direct from the Town’s aquifer. Photo submitted

At the 2013 Program on Water Issues (POWI) conference in Toronto on June 25, Town of Gibsons Director of Engineering Dave Newman cracked open three dozen bottles of imported (to Toronto) water from the Town’s aquifer for a tasting, and provided insight on the Town’s aquifer mapping and groundwater management program to 110 international attendees – representing “the Who’s Who of the international groundwater world.”

Author Ed Struzik, the conference’s keynote speaker on the theme Underground Intelligence: The need to map, monitor and manage Canada’s groundwater resources in an era of drought and climate change first met with Newman in 2012, although the Town’s work in groundwater maintenance had been on his radar for some years. Impressed with Gibsons’ management of its resources and taking the initiative in mapping and monitoring its aquifer, Struzik cited the Town for ‘what it was doing right’.

“The Town received quite an amazing amount of recognition,” Newman said. In the face of some very sobering stories about the state of groundwater management, Newman’s presentation on the Town’s experience with aquifer mapping, groundwater and infrastructure management provided the event’s ‘good news.’

For more information and a link to the POWI conference visit, www.gibsons.ca

Heather Jeal, Contributing writer