For Immediate Release
Tuesday May 5, 2026 Fanny Bay, BC
Trump may be the biggest bully on the block, but he is not the only one after Canada’s water. In the tiny island community of Fanny Bay, two multinational companies are queued up for provincial licenses that would give them rights to local groundwater in perpetuity.
To say the community of Fanny Bay is alarmed would be an understatement. Last summer, for the third or fourth year in a row, wells that have provided reliable water to families for generations were suddenly drying up. Meanwhile, Natural Glacial Waters and Mitsubishi-owned Cermaq – the former shipping water in 500 ml bottles to local and offshore markets and the latter a hatchery supplying Atlantic salmon eggs to their BC fish farms – are in the queue for licenses, and the approval process is being fast tracked.
Policy economists have called for BC groundwater regulation for decades. That finally came into effect in 2016 with the passage of the Water Sustainability Act. Commercial enterprises diverting BC groundwater before 2016 are permitted to continue to draw water at their current rate as a transition measure but required to apply for (and eventually secure) a provincial groundwater license.
Details of the applications are not public, but according to a November 2024 letter to Beaufort Watershed Stewards from the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, Natural Glacial Waters is applying for a license to divert 1,892,160 cubic metres of groundwater a year. Expressed on a daily basis, this is equivalent to the daily consumption of 28,961 people.
The Fanny Bay Groundwater Collective, formed in response to community concern, has just been awarded a grant from West Coast Environmental Law’s Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund (WCEL ERDF) to support legal costs in pursuit of their short-term goal to pause the province’s licensing process. According to Jackie Ainsworth, a member of the Collective Task Force, ‘We need time to explore our options under the Act, to gather evidence, to present that evidence at public hearings, and to ensure local First Nations are respectfully invited to participate as they feel appropriate.”
Ainsworth says their long-term goal is to develop a Water Sustainability Plan that will allow the community to oversee watershed planning, governance and protection of their fragile aquifers and eco systems. “Groundwater is a good of the commons and commons is the root of community. We need to manage our groundwater in the sustainable interests of our community. We are excited and grateful to partner with WCEL to begin this work.”
For further information:
Jackie Ainsworth 250-702-6000, Wendy Holm 604-417-2434 or visit saveourgroundwater.ca.