The Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee has adopted a pair of bylaws aimed at maintaining the water quality in the Island’s drinking water lakes.

The bylaws, Islands Trust Chair Peter Luckham says, also respect the role that farming plays in the island’s culture and economy.

Bylaw 496 amends the Salt Spring Island Official Community Plan to allow the Local Trust Committee to make new regulations for farming on lands that are outside of the Agricultural Land Reserve, but only if those proposed regulations are for the purpose of water quality protection.

Bylaw 487 applies to land in the Rural Watershed 1 and 2 zones.

These are the areas that surround the Island’s main drinking water lakes and amends the Salt Spring Island Land Use Bylaw to remove “intensive agriculture” as a permitted use in the watershed zones.

It introduces a 15 metre setback from water bodies for agriculture in the watershed zones, and also introduces a 30 metre setback from water bodies in all zones for storing hazardous materials used in farm operations.