As the Vancouver East Cultural Centre gears up for next week’s outdoor presentation of A Few Little Drops: The Extraordinary Life of Water, a new controversy has emerged over the administration of Metro Vancouver’s drinking-water supply. Will Koop, coordinator of a citizens’ group called the B.C. Tap Water Alliance, has claimed that regional officials have not followed through on a pledge to decommission logging roads in the ecologically sensitive watersheds.

In an interview with the Georgia Straight, Koop also alleged that Metro Vancouver’s chief administrative officer, Johnny Carline, misled politicians on the regional district’s water committee at a meeting on September 10. Koop claimed that this led the committee to deny his request for access to the watersheds to examine logging roads.

“We now know, as I found out last year, that the water district did not go ahead with its five-year management plan to put 175 kilometres of roads to bed,” Koop said. “So the question is: what is going on?”

The Capilano, Seymour, and Coquitlam reservoirs supply most of the region’s drinking water. Municipal politicians on the water committee decide who may enter the watersheds, which were, up until the early 1990s, the site of significant logging operations. Koop and other environmentalists have claimed that previous clear-cuts and logging roads increase the risk of mudslides because they create pathways for water. Mudslides create turbidity in drinking water. And turbid water carries pathogens that cause gastrointestinal illnesses.

On September 10, according to Koop’s transcript of the audiotaped water-committee meeting, Carline stated that Koop brought a Global Television crew with him into the watershed in November 2006. This was after a mudslide caused turbidity levels 70 times higher than provincial regulations.

“Remember, we had a boil-water advisory,” Carline said, according to the transcript. “We were trying to manage the public confidence and the public health with health authorities.”

Koop maintained that he carried a digital camera during his visit, which was supervised by regional staff. He later released footage, and “carefully described events” to two television stations.

“Mr. Carline had misinformed the committee,” Koop charged. “That led to their disapproval of me.”

Koop’s request to enter the watersheds was supported by letters from the David Suzuki Foundation, the Wilderness Committee, Friends of the Watersheds, and Elaine Golds, a former vice chair of the now-disbanded regional water advisory committee. “The public will only continue to have confidence in how our drinking watersheds are managed if some public access is allowed,” Golds wrote in her letter.

Carline told the Straight in a phone interview that Koop isn’t banned from the watersheds. “The only thing that happened is that Will is subject to the same processes as everybody else is,” Carline claimed. Koop, however, asserted he was turned down based on Carline’s false claim that he brought a television crew into the area.

At the meeting, one committee member, Surrey councillor Barbara Steele, said that she thinks that Carline was “more than generous” with Koop. “I shudder at the fact that he had taken a television crew,” Steele said, according to the transcript.

Coquitlam councillor Mae Reid said it was “despicable” for Koop to bring a TV camera into the watershed, claiming that he “abused any privilege that was extended to him”.

Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan, the committee’s vice chair, said that he resents the suggestion that politicians and Metro Vancouver staff are not properly managing the drinking-water supply. “It’s ludicrous. It’s paranoid,” Corrigan said, according to the transcript.

Koop said that he will ask the committee next month to reconsider his request.