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green infrastructure

    CONVENING FOR ACTION AT THE 2024 BC LAND SUMMIT: “The Partnership hopes that the summit will prove to be a seminal moment in sparking an attitude change about land and water. Time will tell,” stated Kim Stephens, Executive Director, Partnership for Water Sustainability (May 2024)


    “Held every five years as a 3-day event, the BC Land Summit is a watershed moment for showcasing new ideas. The target audiences are those involved in some form of land-related profession. In 2024, the Partnership for Water Sustainability delivered two 90-minute interactive sessions under the banner Caring for the Land Means Going Beyond Just Doing Enough. These sessions were cascading and integrated. A desired outcome is that they would spark innovation and collaboration, by providing valuable insights about the use and conservation of land and water,” stated Kim Stephens.

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    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Regional Growth Strategies for Healthy Communities” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in May 2024


    “In the 2000s, we understood that we were going to have to do cities quite differently if we wanted to achieve the sustainability goals that we had set for ourselves. The Province passed the Regional Growth Strategies Act in 1994. This brought back a regional planning structure after BC had been without one for 10 years or so. The intent of the legislation was regional planning across a whole range of values. It was my job to implement regional growth management. We had not done something like that before. It was much more than pure land use planning,” stated Dale Wall.

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    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: ‘Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Georgia Basin Initiative legacy ripples thru time” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in April 2024


    “The 1990s was a very heady time in government in terms of land use planning and natural resource management. Some initiatives were not implemented all that well, but the Georgia Basin Initiative was the exception. “Launched in 1994, it did exactly what it was intended to do, Moreover, even though it only existed as an entity for a couple of years, it spawned a whole number of other initiatives and programs, some of which blossomed and still exist today,” stated Joan Sawicki, Parliamentary Secretary for the Georgia Basin Initiative during the period 1994-1996.

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    GEORGIA BASIN INITIATIVE LEGACY RIPPLES THROUGH TIME: “If we have lost anything in the last 30 years, it is a strong provincial commitment to supporting community and regional planning,” stated Joan Sawicki, land and resource management champion, and former provincial cabinet minister


    “When you think of the issues we face today….weather extremes, drying rivers, degraded streams, frequent wildfires, population growth, housing affordability…they are no different than they were 30 years ago. They are just more complex and more urgent. We need a renewed provincial provincial emphasis – and yes, that means budget – on supporting community and regional planning and we need another Darlene Marzari. She was the single most important reason for the success of the Georgia Basin Initiative. Darlene Marzari had the knowledge, experience and quiet resolve to make things happen,” stated Joan Sawicki.

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    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Balancing Act – H2O and Healthy Streams” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in April 2024


    “Students are always looking for projects where they can make a difference. The idea was how can we bring more science into development to make a difference. I have always looked for people who are within the system but want to make a change. They are the leaders. And if we can contribute some science to these leaders, they can make the difference, not us. All we do is provide the data. And so, connecting with Richard Boase in the 1990s was really fundamental because he is on the inside,” stated UBC’s Dr. Hans Schreier.

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    BRING THE SCIENCE INTO LOCAL GOVERNMENT: “Hans Schreier of UBC ignited my passion in the mid-1990s when the District worked with UBC on applied research. What we learned was transformational. We then turned our minds to the role of green infrastructure in protecting streams from urban impacts,” stated Richard Boase, career environmental champion within local government in the Metro Vancouver region


    “The UBC research team led by Hans Schreier and Ken Hall dated all these sediment cores from Burnaby Lake and extracted sediments from certain years. They identified, for example, when lead stopped being used in gasoline. They also showed how pollutants in road runoff work their way through the drainage networks and into streams where they deposit. It was an inspiring moment for me. I saw a path forward for making a difference. That was the moment when I realized why we must do a better job of erosion and sediment control,” stated Richard Boase.

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    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: EAP is a financial tool to help streams survive” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in April 2024


    “I am the first master’s student involved in EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process. It is interesting because my research is an applied project that has direct implications for local governments. My research looked at ways we could take EAP from a stream-by-stream approach and apply it to a watershed scale or a regional scale. This might be really useful and cost-effective for local governments that have multiple streams in their jurisdiction. In my thesis, I looked at ways to simplify the process for moving EAP to the regional scale and lower the boundaries to entry on different types of projects,” stated Sam Gerrand.

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    CONVENING FOR ACTION AT THE 2024 BC LAND SUMMIT: “There are many different parts to EAP. With each part comes a pathway with capacity to help local governments,” stated Anna Lawrence, Project Coordinator, Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Region Research Institute at Vancouver Island University


    Local government Asset Management Plans need real financial values in order to include budgets for streams. “Led by Tim Pringle, the Partnership for Water Sustainability created the methodology for EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process. EAP has been passed on to VIU as part of the intergenerational baton. Now we are in a 3-year transition strategy to embed it. As we become more familiar with EAP and its applications, it is becoming increasingly apparent that it requires tailored communication to a variety of audiences,” stated Anna Lawrence.

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    GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE JOURNEY IN THE CITY OF DELTA: “Before, emphasis was on THE WHY. Now we are getting better at THE HOW,” stated Harvy Singh Takhar, Utilities Engineer with the City of Delta in Metro Vancouver


    “We have done a lot of back and forth on road designs. The streetscape enhancement ideology is being implemented at the forefront rather than through a review of utilities to see whether there any drainage concerns. The road designers are taking the initiative to incorporate curb cuts and even linear rain gardens. Their understanding of the need has evolved through internal collaboration. By working with the roads people on curb cuts, we have actually come up with variations. Our original detail was quite generic. Now we are able to implement it in various types of curb designs,” stated Harvy Takhar.

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    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Delta’s rain garden program for streetscape revitalization” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in April 2024


    “Historically, drainage has been an afterthought in urban planning decisions. Neighbourhoods were developed without thinking about drainage in a broader watershed context. Circa 2000, however, the emphasis became let’s look at this on a watershed basis. For municipalities like Delta with well-developed infrastructure, this meant figuring out HOW to retrofit and redesign drainage systems. Road rights-of-way account for one-third of the land area of a typical urban watershed, Commitment to a rain garden program would make a material difference over time,” stated Hugh Fraser.

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