Originally, we checked with Peter Brady regarding the Heron Rocks Friendship Center project. Their project consisted of testing Coliform counts in surface waters and wells in as many locations as possible across the island. With this data we had hoped to collect septic field locations and age, well location, age and depth, in addition to outhouses locations. With all of these sets of data we had hoped to determine which locations on the Island that would be considered as hot spots for groundwater contamination. As well as hopefully determining an estimation of the sources of this contamination, such as poorly maintained septic fields, and outhouses too close to wells. Unfortunately there were a number of problems obtaining such data. Over the many years of Hornby Island’s residential development, records of septic fields, outhouse locations and well logs have not been documented according to any standards. As a result, some data sets were very inconsistent while others were just non-existent.

From the Coliform tests done by the Heron Rocks Friendship center and precipitation data that we obtained from Doug Christy we also wanted to look at changes in coliform counts with respect to seasonal precipitation variation as there is approximately five times as much precipitation in the wet months (October, November, December, January, February and March) as there is in the dry months (April, May, June, July and September). So, we made a trip to Hornby Island to digitize with a GPS all the locations where water samples had been taken. Unfortunately, the sampling of the coliform data was inconsistent and sparse therefore no correlation could be made.

Due to these hardships with obtaining reliable and complete data, our idea evolved further. With many discussions and help from very supportive people (Tony Law and Brett Korteling from Islands Trust, Shannon Denny and Murray Journeay from Natural Resource Canada, Mike Feduk from Ministry of Water Land and Air protection in Nanaimo, Diana Allen a professor from SFU and Heather Follis from theRegional District of Strathcona), we decided to look at aquifer vulnerability for Hornby Island by applying the DRASTIC model to our Hornby Island digitized shape files.

By looking at geology, soil type, slope, water bodies, zoning, fractures etc. we wanted to determine aquifer vulnerability for Hornby Island following the DRASTIC model provided by Shannon Denny and Murray Journeay. In the process of collecting data we participated in a water forum on Hornby Island that was put together by Tony Law and residences of Hornby Island. The forum addressed many of the islands water quality and quantity issues. The community shared their knowledge with us and provided guidance in the importance of this project.

The useful shapefiles of Hornby Island that we used were given to us by Brett Korteling, Mike Feduk, Shannon Denny and Heather Follis. Unfortunately, many of the shapefiles that were obtained had no metadata available and therefore further consultations were needed.

The well log data exemplifies this; there was no key explaining field names, and no field appread to be designated as depth to water table. Of the 642 wells encompassesd in the shapefile log, there were 50 that contained comments on what depth water had been reached at. After consultations and searching the Ministry of Water Land and Air protection web site and the Ministry of Sustainable resource management web site, nothing further to explain the fields was found. This led to the decision to use the data of the 50 wells that had recorded depth at which water was reached as our depth to water table inputs.

Once all necessary data had been obtained, the following step was data manipulation according to the DRASTIC model used by the NSW Australia study [Picsopo] and the Southern Gulf Island study [Journey et al.].