Convening for Action in British Columbia

“We are using the slogan The New Business As Usual to convey the message that, for change to really occur, practices that until now have been viewed as the exception must become the norm moving forward,” stated Dale Wall.

“Over the past decade, BC has made considerable progress in changing infrastructure practices through an educational approach. Now, the focus is on how the Province’s grant programs provide incentives necessary to influence behaviour; and reward those who meet program objectives for doing business differently,” stated Glen Brown.

“In practical terms, what designing with nature means…is essentially a restatement of Smart Growth principles. We find that people intuitively understand what designing with nature means. It is non-threatening,” stated Ray Fung. “What we found is that the term Smart Growth is sometimes highly charged and political. People often get their backs up because they associate ‘smart growth’ as being all about imposing higher density development. We find that people intuitively understand what designing with nature means. It is non-threatening.”

”In BC, the approach that we are taking is to set the goal. As a result, we are seeing people in local governments leapfrogging each other to see how close they can get to the goal,” stated Chris Jensen.

“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.

“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.

“It is important to use descriptions which are linked more closely with the objectives and ideas. Ideally, the right choice of wording will frame the concepts clearly, and provide the terminology with some longevity. Clarity will help with uptake – jargon and anachronism needs to be avoided as they can obscure the objectives and ideas,” states Robert Hicks.

“Climate change is not the driver; rather, it is a variable. Furthermore, climate change is only one factor to consider when we talk about sustainable infrastructure. The key is to focus on what you want to do. Because many factors are in play, the objective is to build in resiliency to address risk,” stated Kim Stephens.

“The community volunteers are excited to play a part in this project. This on-the-ground research by UBC will inform the neighbourhood planning process by bringing science into the discussion of the role that trees play in the urban environment,” stated Paddy Sherman.

In October 2007, a conference in Seattle included a cross-border panel session on Stormwater Management and Low Impact Development. The panel session created a timely opportunity to compare an American top-down prescriptive approach versus a Canadian bottom-up educational approach. “In Washington State, we cannot achieve environmental protection using current methods of development. There isn’t a land use dictator who can demand change. It will take public education to instill a culture change for us to have any hope that we can protect aquatic resources in the urban environment,” stated Ed O’Brien.