Convening for Action in British Columbia

“In moving towards water sustainability, we envision that developers that balance settlement and ecology will be rewarded. Because time is money, we believe that environmental environments can be paid for through money saved as a result of faster approval times”, stated Graeme Bethell. “Because we believe that Vancouver Island has all the ingredients in place for success, we believe that it will emerge as a water sustainability pilot for North America.”

“The strength of the CAVI approach on Vancouver Island is the engagement of its partners on a one on one basis who “buy in” to the vision of water-centric planning. The process is accumulative, as others from diverse backgrounds are drawn to the common goal of achieving water sustainability. Each progressive step builds upon the previous success story,” wrote Eric Bonham.

“While we need to have volume reduction targets, at the end of the day it is how effectively we apply the suite of available rainwater management tools that will ultimately determine whether we will succeed in protecting stream health at a watershed scale,” concluded Corino Salomi.

“The CAVI vision is that water sustainability will be achieved through implementation of green infrastructure policies and practices. The CAVI role is to provide venues which create opportunities to start conversations that will ultimately lead to action. CAVI is facilitating the move from awareness (interest) to action(practice) in changing where and how land is developed, how water is used, and how water runs off the land,” stated John Finnie.

“Water is the piece that integrates everything that we care about. We are using the phrase water stewardship, not water management. Stewardship is about replacing self interest, dependency and control with service, responsibility and partnership,” stated Lynn Kriwoken.

“Beyond the Guidebook takes the Stormwater Planning Guidebook to the next level of evolution. To help engineers in particular, we have developed an analytical methodology that connects source control evaluation with stream health assessment,” stated Jim Dumont. “Through implementation of “green infrastructure” policies and practices, the desired outcome in going Beyond the Guidebook is to apply what we have learned at the site scale over the past five years.”

The workshop addressed this question: how does a community weigh the benefits and liabilities of changes driven by demand for land use? “What will determine the long-term wellbeing for a community or region? In a nutshell, ‘wellbeing’ is about sustainability of what communities allow or prevent happening on the land. Wellbeing is about balancing settlement activity…or change…and ecology,” stated Tim Pringle.

“The seminar is the next step in the rollout of ‘Beyond the Guidebook: Context for Rainwater Management and Green Infrastructure in British Columbia’. This guidance document was released in June 2007,” stated Paul Ham. “The purpose of the Beyond the Guidebook initiative is to to help local governments achieve desired urban stream health and environmental protection outcomes at a watershed scale.”

Events were hosted by Delta, Langley Township and UniverCity. “When you have examples of what can be done, and projects are being built, you can then wrap your mind around the green infrastructure vision and say to yourself: what’s the big deal….this is really common sense….if we can do this, then we can do more,” stated Mayor Lois Jackson. “The Showcasing Innovation Series is a major priority for me because this is where it happens. Later this morning I will be chairing a meeting of the Metro Vancouver Board, and I will tell them about where I was this morning. And I will get them excited about hosting showcasing events in their municipalities too.”

“Like most other areas on Vancouver Island, the Comox Valley is at a major cross-roads as to how we will develop and still maintain the natural beauty of our community. This is a real challenge.We are experiencing phenomenal growth. So we are really depending on the practitioners to keep us grounded and realistic so that growth will be sustainable,” stated Starr Winchester, Chair of the Comox-Strathcona Regional District. ““Local government leaders are telling our staffs that we want to be a sustainable community tomorrow,” she stated. “We are not being so unrealistic as to ask for this yesterday.”