Conservation Needs Illustration

Meet Phil, short for Phillet O'Trout, the City of Merritt's Water Conservation Program mascot that was alas never meant to be. I created this Rainbow Trout caricature while working as a Water Conservation Officer, otherwise affectionately known as "Water Cop" for the program a few years ago. My City employers felt that the image was too strong for their constituency, especially in consideration of my proposal to use it in connection to the Merritt Country Music Festival's controversial and environmentally damaging Campground C.

Merritt's City Council directed my partner and I to focus the bulk of our efforts on issuing citations to water offenders. Finding that penalties actually made the situation worse (we live in a desert and use more water per capita during summer months than almost any other City in the world) and led me to look a little closer at education and identifying the community's emotional trigger points. Fish and fishing are where its at here and is something that all of Merritt loves and feels supportive of.

So Phil in all of his sketchy glory lives on as a reminder that we are not the only ones who use water that we draw from our taps. Eventually all water particles make their way around the globe via the Hydrologic Cycle.