“Bowker Creek Watershed Blueprint is a provincial game-changer,” Kim Stephens informs Capital Region elected representatives
Blueprint is a 100-Year Action Plan to Restore an Urban Watershed
In February 2014, Kim Stephens, Partnership Executive Director met with the Environmental Services Committee of the Capital Regional District (CRD) to present a Progress Report on Inter-Regional Collaboration for Watershed Sustainability. In his presentation, he took the time to describe why the Bowker Creek Watershed Blueprint is leading change in British Columbia. The Blueprint is a 100-year action plan to restore watershed function in the urban heartland of the Capital Region.
Leading Change
“I really want to highlight the significance of the Bowker Creek Watershed Blueprint. In a word, it was a game-changer. It is a game-changer. It continues to be a game-changer. And it is provincially significant and precedent-setting. It is also inspirational. In my 40-year career as a professional engineer, there is nothing that equals it. And the reason it 
is so important is that it gave the rest of us a vision of what can be. In this region, you moved it from just having reports to actually having action.”
“I always say you judge progress by how far you have come, not where you still have to get to. And so, Bowker Creek really is significant. The experience of what this region has done is informing others, from Metro Vancouver all the way up to the Comox Valley.”
“The real value of collaboration is helping everyone go farther, more efficiently and effectively. And if I think about the Bowker Creek in the context of what we are trying to do in British Columbia, it is about designing with nature. If we implement green infrastructure, that is how we ultimately mimic the natural water balance. Watershed health really does depend on how we respect the land.”
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