Years ago, Shurl Nicholls was watching David Suzuki on TV, when he quoted that oft-cited phrase: Think globally, act locally. Nicholls thought: What can I do? The Burnaby resident started saving her bathwater for plants around her building, and to help flush her toilet. Then she noticed a table on her back patio, dripping rainwater into an overflowing bucket, and she started collecting rainwater, too. She now has a system that involves 50 recycled milk jugs, a tarp and the glass table. The NOW talked to Nicholls about her efforts to conserve water while caring for the neighbourhood trees.
Q&A:
What do you do with your 50 milk jugs of rain water?
Mostly I water plants on the deck, and I also use them when we have water restrictions, I take them outside and water the plants that need to be done.
That’s very proactive of you. What about the trees on the city boulevard?
I’ve always believed and been told that if you have a boulevard or shrubbery growing in front of your home, even if it is the city’s property, it is the duty of the home owners, the dwellers who enjoy that greenery to keep it healthy and clean and tidy – pick up the garbage etcetera, that’s my civic duty! (Laughs)
A lot of people don’t know that. I think they assume the city will come water those trees, but they don’t. So you go out there and water them with the rain water?
If it needs it, yes. It does take time. I do wait until it’s needed and keep watch on them, because that’s our part of the village.
In the bigger scheme of things, why do you think it’s important to conserve water this way?
In the early days, when logging was the big thing and everybody was building these magnificent wooden houses, they were just clearcutting things. Clearcuts were so severe that our Canadian space astronaut said you could see that clearcut in British Columbia from space. What happens, of course, and this is what the Bible stories are about, that if we do clearcutting, and the rain comes, the trees don’t automatically grow. What more likely will happen is the rain will wash off the topsoil, and the trees will have a much more difficult time trying to grow on bare rock. I can think of lots of places in the world where you wonder: Why aren’t the trees growing here? It must take hundreds of thousands of years to build up good topsoil.
What kind of impact do you hope to have from your little corner here in Edmonds?
Oh, this little light of mine, I hope that other people will think about our children and grandchildren’s future, and we can give them the beautiful world that we are enjoying now, too, by being careful with what we do.
