Monday July 17, 2023. In March 2023, Diamond Springs invited Beaufort Water Stewards – as part of their groundwater monitoring activities – to install a groundwater monitoring system in Diamond Spring’s well. The monitoring equipment was installed April 9th. This system, which records water height every 15 minutes, provides monthly data to both BWS and our Coop to monitor the health of our groundwater resource.
Based on data collected in April, May and June, water levels in our well over the past 3 months have dropped by approximately 2 feet. According to manual measurements taken over the past 20 years, a 2 foot drop during the summer months is to be expected for this well, but we must remember this is only July and we are in a drought.
As we collect data over time, we will be able to develop informed “indicators” (red, yellow, green) that tell us when to slow down and when to stop bottling. Lacking sufficient data this year and wanting to err on the side of caution, we bottled only a small amount in the first half of July to provide water to our long-time Denman Island customers, then set our bottling indicator to RED for the rest of the summer. We will not resume bottling until mid-September or later when conditions improve.
Because groundwater levels are of interest to all of us, we will continue to share the groundwater graph on our webpage each month. It is our understanding that BWS will share this data with the CVRD as part of a groundwater health monitoring program.
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