A SHORT HISTORY OF THE PARTNERSHIP FOR WATER SUSTAINABILITY: “A top-down and bottom-up framework that leveraged partnerships defined the period from November 2002 through November 2010,” states Lynn Kriwoken, Living Water Smart champion within the provincial government
Note to Reader:
The early history of the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia is presented in the contextual document titled Celebration of Our Story: Genesis / First Decade / What Next, published in November 2020. The following article is the 7th in a series of extracts from this key document.
The main takeaway is that a top-down and bottom-up framework leveraged partnerships and defined the period from November 2002 through November 2010. The period was ultimately defined by Living Water Smart, British Columbia’s Water Plan, released in June 2008.
At the turn of the century, a restructuring and renewal process laid the foundation for the Partnership for Water Sustainability
“Re-built as the Water Sustainability Committee or WSC, our journey began anew in January 2003 with a mostly new cast of players, many of whom became the founding members of The Partnership in 2010. Restructuring involved going well beyond the water industry world of BCWWA,” states Kim Stephens, who took on the chair role in 2002.
“We broadened and enhanced the capabilities of the WSC roundtable to advance water-centric planning.”
“We recruited individuals who shared our values and brought diverse backgrounds and experience at multiple scales.”
“And we developed links and partnerships with groups outside the water industry.”
“The WSC team built the foundation that enabled the WSC to immediately move into a provincial vacuum and begin to fill a provincial need as a water roundtable in the local government setting. Moreover, the WSC was buttressed by the support provided by multiple provincial government ministries.”
“Erik challenged us intellectually and helped all of us push the boundaries of our comfort zones. This brought out the creativity in everyone. The effect was powerful. Erik’s first drafts would focus the brainstorming. The result was a philosophical foundation and framework that has guided The Partnership to this day.”
Inspiration for ‘The Partnership Vision’
“A Briefing Paper produced by the WUEC incarnation of the committee, and released in early 1997, laid out a partnership framework for aligning the efforts of BC’s water suppliers, the Province, and public advocacy groups in working towards common goals. This is a foundation document for those wishing to understand the history and evolution The Partnership,” continues Kim Stephens.
“Titled Developing a Partnership to Advance Water Use Efficiency in BC, the Briefing Paper provided the WSC incarnation of the committee with a point of departure. A key moment in the 2003 process occurred when reference to the Briefing Paper inspired our vision statement.”
Charting a new course with the Water Sustainability Action Plan
“The 2001 provincial election resulted in a change in government, with Gordon Campbell elected as Premier. His grasp of water issues meant that BC’s top decision-maker was a ‘water champion’ whose interests encompassed the vision for the Water Sustainability Action Plan,” states Lynn Kriwoken. She retired as an Executive Director in the Ministry of Environment in 2020.
Drawing on the three objectives in the Premier’s mandate letter, this statement of intent crafted by Lynn Kriwoken became the call to action for the BC Water Sustainability Committee:
In 2003, this ‘top-down and bottom-up’ context for action represented a remarkable paradigm-shift in guiding philosophy for government
“Lynn Kriwoken played an instrumental role in the creation and launching of the Water Sustainability Action Plan. A true visionary, she immediately saw the value of the WSC as an advisory group to government at a time when BC was in transition after the 2001 election,” states Eric Bonham. A former director in two ministries, Environment and Municipal Affairs, he originally hired Lynn Kriwoken for his floodplain management group in the late 1980s.
Advisory Group to Government
“The terms of engagement for provincial funding anticipated that the WSC roundtable would advise government on how to implement ‘a watershed / landscape-based (water-centric) approach to community planning’. Don Enns and I unveiled the Action Plan vision, in a half-day session titled Charting a New Course: A Vision for an Integrated Approach to Water Management, conducted as part of the 2003 BCWWA Annual Conference in April 2003,” states Kim Stephens.
“Then, in November 2003, Lynn Kriwoken organized a provincial focus group workshop in Kelowna to “develop strategies to maximize the effectiveness of the Water Sustainability Action Plan”. More than 40 representatives from various sectors within the water industry and from the broader community travelled from three regions to participate.”
Action Plan Elements
“Everything is connected. And so, a jigsaw puzzle was the original branding image for the Water Sustainability Action Plan. The six initial program elements holistically linked water management with land use. Each element involved collaboration and partnerships. Thus, an interdisciplinary network quickly took shape, with the WSC as the hub,” reports Ray Fung.
He was the Director of Engineering and Transportation with the District of West Vancouver. He chaired the WSC from 2003 through 2008 and is a founding member and director of the Partnership.
Vision for Water Sustainability Roundtable
“The roundtable idea originated with Erik Karlsen,” continues Kim Stephens. “Erik had been the provincial government lead for a cross-border summit that British Columbia and Washington State co-hosted. Although it was a highly successful event, and participants were energized by the experience, that energy did not translate into lasting action. Talk is cheap.”
“This disappointing outcome focused Erik Karlsen’s creative mind on how to facilitate moving from talk to tangible and lasting action on the ground. Thus, the Water Sustainability Action Plan became the vehicle for putting Erik Karlsen’s wisdom into play.”
“As a co-author of the Action Plan guidance document, Erik Karlsen framed the over-arching goal of the roundtable as achieving critical mass such that the idea of ‘integrated water management’ takes off – and ultimately becomes mainstream.”
Early Evolution of Action Plan Elements
“Released in 2002, the Watershed / Landscape-Based Approach to Community Planning was a product of Metro Vancouver’s Technical Advisory Committee. Erik Karlsen was the principal author. The WSC embraced it as guiding philosophy and incorporated it as an Action Plan Element. Within two years, we simplified it to water-centric planning,” notes Kim Stephens.
“In 2005, we reimagined the Water Sustainability Roundtable as Convening for Action: Roundtable on Water Sustainability. Then, in 2006, we re-imagined it as Convening for Action in British Columbia. This Action Plan Element also flowed from the experience of Erik Karlsen in leading the Georgia Basin Initiative in the1990s.”
Gordon Campbell’s Vision for a Water Summit
“Release of the Water Sustainability Action Plan initiated planning within government for a 3-day Premier’s Water Summit, with the WSC being responsible for Day #3,” adds Ray Fung. He succeeded Kim Stephens as WSC Chair in 2003.
Convening for Action in British Columbia
In February 2005, exactly one year after release of the Water Sustainability Action Plan, the final day of the 3-day Okanagan Conference on the Future for Water was the forum for a presentation that launched Convening for Action in BC. The guiding vision for the initiative succinctly states that:
“The launch was followed by a technology transfer workshop in April 2005, again held in the Okanagan. Co-developed and co-hosted by the WSC and two provincial agencies, and titled Demand Management Strategies – Achieving Water Balance, the workshop is historically significant as the first convening for action event. It introduced key concepts that we have built upon over the years,” states Ray Fung.
“Convening for Action is a provincial initiative that supports innovation on-the-ground, and has undertaken regional demonstration initiatives and programs on Vancouver Island and in Metro Vancouver, as well in the Okanagan Basin and Thompson River Region,” continues Glen Brown. At the time, he was a Director in the Ministry of Community Development. He succeeded Ray Fung as WSC Chair in 2008.
South Okanagan Sub-Regional Pilot
“Beginning in late 2005, the Action Plan partnered with the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen to ‘convene for action’ at a sub-regional scale. Collaboration enabled the South Okanagan Regional Growth Strategy to establish a provincial precedent: a water-centric strategy,” continues Glen Brown.
“The South Okanagan pilot was the centrepiece for the Whistler Mini-Summit on Water Stewardship and Sustainability, held in May 2006. The Summit tested a dialogue approach to audience engagement. It also introduced the Settlement Change in Balance with Ecology way-of-thinking about water sustainability. Erik Karlsen was a central figure.”
Green Infrastructure Partnership (GIP)
“In the Lower Mainland, the GIP served as the umbrella for ‘convening for action’, with the WSC as the secretariat,” explains Ray Fung. “Launched in 2004, the GIP pioneered the Showcasing Green Infrastructure Innovation Series in 2006 as a way to provide peer-based education through peer-based sharing & learning.”
“The GIP then partnered with CAVI-Convening for Action on Vancouver Island to introduce the approach to Vancouver Island in 2007 and 2008.”
CAVI-Convening for Action on Vancouver Island
“Launched in September 2006 as an adjunct to the Water in the City Conference, CAVI adapted the South Okanagan experience to the regional scale,” states John Finnie, CAVI Chair. At the time, John was the General Manager of Regional and Community Utilities with the Regional District of Nanaimo.
Living Water Smart, British Columbia’s Water Plan
“The experience gained through the Water Sustainability Action Plan informed development of Living Water Smart, released in June 2008,” states Lynn Kriwoken.
“The Action Plan program built a ‘convening for action network’ in the local government setting, fostered sharing and learning within regions and between regions, and showed how to align efforts at multiple scales through “top-down and bottom-up” collaboration,” continues Ray Fung.
“The ‘regional team approach’ is founded on partnerships and collaboration; and seeks to align actions at three scales – provincial, regional and local. Everyone needs to agree on expectations and how all the players will work together, and after that each community can reach its goals in its own way,” adds Eric Bonham.
Implementation Themes
Implementation in Local Government Setting
“The partnership umbrella provided by the Water Sustainability Action Plan allowed the Province to leverage partnerships to greatly enhance the profile and resulting impact of Living Water Smart. The convening for action network played a vitally important supporting role for two of the the five theme areas – that is, outreach and community planning,” explains Lynn Kriwoken.
“In effect, the Water Sustainability Action Plan partners and the WSC in particular functioned as the on-the-ground Living Water Smart implementation arm with local government. The in-kind support from local government was substantial and grew, and meant my team could focus our work effort on legislative reform.”
“While legislation is a foundation piece, collaboration takes place outside the legislative framework. That is why we constantly emphasized that Living Water Smart is about motivating and inspiring everyone to embrace shared responsibility,” Lynn Kriwoken emphasizes.
Living Water Smart in the Local Government Setting
The image below is a mind-map that illustrates how everything is connected, in particular how initiatives are nested within initiatives. This mind-map provides the reader with an over-arching context for understanding the work of the Partnership in the Living Water Smart era, in particular these two foundational program elements: the Vancouver Island Learning Lunch Seminar Series and the Beyond the Guidebook Initiative.
“The waterbucket.ca website and the weekly Waterbucket eNews provide the Partnership with two media platforms to share successes within BC and beyond,” states Mike Tanner, a founding director of the Partnership.
“The vision has been fulfilled. Users tell us that waterbucket.ca dominates Google searches. Even better, 60% of our world-wide audience is in the 18-34 age demographic.”
Vancouver Island Learning Lunch Seminar Series
“Delivered under the CAVI umbrella, this precedent-setting approach to peer-based education was undertaken from 2008 through 2015. The capacity-building objective was to foster informed water-centric decisions by local governments,” explains John Finnie. He served as CAVI Chair from 2006 through 2011.
This lynch-pin target in Living Water Smart provided the starting point for curriculum design:
“The curriculum connected dots, drawing on a number of provincial guidance documents, in particular Stormwater Planning: A Guidebook for British Columbia, states Kim Stephens. “The spotlight was on how to achieve desired water sustainability outcomes through consistent implementation of effective green infrastructure practices.”
“We initially envisioned these sessions as inter-departmental in a small group setting. The concept quickly mushroomed in scope as an inter-governmental and inter-regional program. The nine local governments in the Cowichan and Comox valleys volunteered to collaborate as two Living Water Smart demonstration regions.
“Learning Lunches created opportunities for local government representatives to share ideas and discuss innovative approaches and solutions to local water problems,” continues John Finnie. “Generally limited to about 50 attendees, these seminars ran for about 5 hours.”
“By sharing ideas, attendees often left with fresh ideas or solutions to one or more of their own local problems. The sessions also provided opportunities to develop camaraderie and professional networking opportunities. Some of the connections and relationships established through the series continued for many years, or even a lifetime.”
Beyond the Guidebook Initiative
“To help upgrade the state-of-practice for land development and drainage, an inter-governmental partnership developed the Water Balance Model and Express decision-support tools as an extension of the Stormwater Guidebook,” states Richard Boase, a career environmental champion in local government and Partnership vice-president.
“These online tools were the subject for a second, and interconnected, program of education and training that also supported Living Water Smart. Formally launched in 2007 with endorsement by DFO and government of BC, the Beyond the Guidebook Initiative built on the Guidebook foundation.”
Richard Boase doing a demonstration of soil-water interaction at one of many Water Balance Model training sessions.
“The Beyond the Guidebook Initiative has expanded over the years such that the Partnership has three categories of guidance documents. These share the stories of local government leaders who are applying science-based understanding to achieve whole-system, water balance outcomes,” concludes Richard Boase.
To Learn More:
To read the complete story about the early history of the Partnership, download a copy of Celebration of Our Story: Genesis / First Decade / What Next. It is structured in two part parts. Part One sketches an outline of many ideas and nuances about the work of The Partnership. Part Two is a deeper dive as shown in the storyboard below.
DOWNLOAD A COPY: https://waterbucket.ca/atp/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020/11/PWSBC_Story-of-First-Decade_Nov-2020.pdf
