The Sooke Flowline — 110 years old and counting

The Sooke Flowline is a 44 km concrete aqueduct built in 1915 to carry water from Sooke Lake to Victoria. Gravity-fed, with a dish-shaped concrete floor and parabolic cover designed to prevent winter freezing, it was a remarkable engineering achievement for its era.

At 110 years old, the Flowline is the single most critical piece of infrastructure in Greater Victoria's water system — and its age is a growing concern. A failure of the Flowline would cut off the primary supply to the region with no immediate alternative conveyance available at scale.

No fluoride since 2011

Victoria and Metro Vancouver are two of the largest Canadian cities that do not fluoridate their drinking water. The CRD board voted to remove fluoride from the Greater Victoria supply in 2011, citing cost and community preference. BC's public health position supports fluoridation but leaves the decision to utilities.

This makes Greater Victoria an outlier relative to most Canadian cities, and a common reference point in national debates about fluoride policy.

Victoria also made headlines until 2020 for being the last major Canadian city discharging raw sewage — the McLoughlin Point secondary treatment plant opened that year, ending a decades-long political impasse.