An Interview with Peter Law (November 2017): “Our goal is to educate people in the watershed surrounding Shelly Creek. We will be conducting ‘kitchen table talks’ to educate people on the effects of excess water running through the stream.”
Note to Reader:
In October 2017, the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia released the 6th in the Watershed Case Profile Series. It tells the story of how the Mid Vancouver Island Habitat Enhancement Society is leading by example.
Shelly Creek, a tributary of the Englishman River flows through the City of Parksville, and is important to salmonids. MVIHES has established a provincial precedent with the Shelly Creek Water Balance & Sediment Reduction Plan; and this will have reverberations as the “Shelly Creek story” becomes well-known.
The Shelly Creek experience foreshadows that an informed stream stewardship sector may prove to be a difference-maker that accelerates implementation of the ‘whole-system, water balance’ approach in British Columbia.
Mid Vancouver Island Habitat Enhancement Society vice-president Peter Law, with his dog Bella, looks at some of the restoration work the society did on Shelly Creek in 2015. The rocks on either side of the creek are meant to deal with the erosion from the creek. — Lauren Collins photo
Parksville Qualicum Beach stream stewards working to restore Shelly Creek
Local stream stewards are hoping to educate people on water balance and sediment reduction for Shelly Creek, wrote Lauren Collins in a story published in the Parksville Qualicum Beach News in November 2017.
The Mid Vancouver Island Habitat Enhancement Society (MVIHES) has spent recent years working to restore Shelly Creek, which runs through Parksville and Errington. Peter Law, MVIHES vice president, said the local stream stewards began surveying the creek in 2010.
What MVIHES found, Law said, was that the stream was putting more water through because of nearby developments. He said the creek now has five times more water running through it than what was originally flowing through the creekbed.
MVIHES wants to educate residents on water balance in the stream
“You want to slow the water down, you want to put it back into that shallow groundwater to allow it to slowly work its way into this (creek) so Mother Nature can kind of take the water and not destroy the stream,” stated Peter Law.
Now the society’s goal is to educate people in the watershed surrounding Shelly Creek. Law said the group will be conducting “kitchen table talks” to educate people on the effects of excess water running through the stream.
To Learn More:
To read the complete article, download a copy of Parksville Qualicum Beach stream stewards working to restore Shelly Creek
Visit http://www.mvihes.bc.ca/current-initiatives/the-imbalance-of-the-shelly-creek-watershed
