The Regional District of Central Kootenay has more than 1,000 water systems, says RDCK board chair Aimee Watson. But although the RDCK owns 19 of those systems, it has very little authority over the health of watershed ecosystems. “…communities are at the mercy of whatever is occurring on Crown land,” Watson said, and most often that means logging. Timber operations can damage or destroy individual residents’ water systems, and they can cause landslides or flooding. Large new housing developments are also an issue. They tend to tap into water sources without first checking to see if there is enough. “There is nobody overviewing this kind of thing, how it will all work together,” Watson says. “And then you throw in climate change.” The RDCK wants the province to enact legislation that would require developers and timber companies, in collaboration with communities, to prepare detailed community watershed management plans