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Daniel Pauly

    22 – LESSONS FROM THE PAST INFORM THE FUTURE IN METRO VANCOUVER: How do we accommodate more people, ensure livable communities, protect stream health?


    “Every generation is handed a world that has been shaped by their predecessors – and then seemingly forgets that fact. This blind spot is the reason why a baseline creeps imperceptibly over generations. We transform the world, but we don’t remember it. We adjust our baseline to the new level, and we don’t recall what was there. At the end you want to sustain miserable leftovers,” stated Daniel Pauly.

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    DESIGN WITH NATURE TO CREATE LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECT STREAM HEALTH: “The Bowker Creek Initiative is a network. It is a true community-driven collaboration made up of people with a lot of heart, grit, commitment, and dedication. They are dedicated to achieving the Bowker Blueprint vision,” stated Jody Watson


    Jody Watson provided inspirational leadership as chair of the Bowker Creek Initiative (BCI) for 13 years from 2005 through 2018. Without determined champions, nothing gets started and nothing happens. Champions motivate others. “The BCI represents an extensive network that includes three Councils, every department, 11 community associations, and the CRD too. We have spent 20 years of trust-building, of credibility-building. All that is part of collaboration, and that is what makes collaboration work. We had little successes and we had big successes,” stated Jody Watson

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    FOCUS ON THE HEALTH OF STREAM CORRIDORS: “There is a need for a new approach to hydrologic design, Jim Dumont advocated in the mid-2000s. So, Fergus Creek became the pilot,” stated Rémi Dubé, former Drainage Planning Manager with the City of Surrey


    By the late 2000s, Surrey was poised to move beyond pilot projects to a broader watershed-based objectives approach. And they did as of 2008 when Council passed am enabling bylaw. From that bold leap forward emerged the framework for Surrey’s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy. The genesis for the strategy was the green solutions concept in the Fergus Creek plan. The innovation in the Fergus Creek plan flowed from collaboration between Surrey engineering and planning staff and with Jim Dumont, a water resource innovator and thought leader.

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    DESIGN WITH NATURE TO CREATE LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECT STREAM HEALTH: “My thinking about neighbourhood concept planning has been shaped by the look-and-feel of East Clayton as it was built compared to what we envisioned with the lofty goals for a sustainable community,” stated Rémi Dubé, a longtime green infrastructure champion and innovator with the City of Surrey


    “In the 2000s, Fergus Creek was the first of the new generation of watershed plans in the City of Surrey. We wanted a plan that would actually facilitate changes in how land is developed. In other words, what the watershed will look like in future should drive the approach to rainwater management. The Fergus Creek plan introduced the vision for implementing green solutions as the alternative to conventional engineered blue solutions. And it seeded the two ideas that became Surrey’s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Biodiversity DCC,” stated Rémi Dubé.

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    DESIGN WITH NATURE TO CREATE LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECT STREAM HEALTH: “The lucky part in Surrey was that the people who set the green infrastructure groundwork at the lower levels all advanced to senior levels where their duties were bigger than drainage. But they all had that base knowledge,” stated Carrie Baron, former Drainage Manager with the City of Surrey


    “We cannot ignore that we had to switch strategies with provincial legislative changes. We were always trying to find out where the political and thus legislative focus was during my era as Drainage Manager, and then trying to fit our program to meet their focus. We used their language but still did what we needed for the City. At the local level, you work with the language of the day and you have to be savvy. When Surrey adopted a Sustainability Charter, it gave us the language we needed to protect environmental and drainage needs,” stated Carrie Baron.

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    DESIGN WITH NATURE TO CREATE LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECT STREAM HEALTH: “As years pass, we tend to forget or take the early innovation for granted. In Surrey, we learned and we adapted,” observes Paul Ham,former General Manager of Engineering, City of Surrey


    A generation ago, Paul Ham’s quiet and unassuming leadership behind the scenes made the green infrastructure movement possible in British Columbia. As chair from 2005 through 2008, he provided the Green Infrastructure Partnership with credibility at the regional engineers table. Their support enabled the partnership to lead a “convening for action” initiative in the Lower Mainland region. The paradigm-shift during Paul Ham’s watch far exceeded expectation that the Green Infrastructure Partnership would be a catalyst for change.

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    ASSET MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE SERVICE DELIVERY: “Through the power and magic of collaboration, BC communities can rise to the challenge and adapt to the new climate reality of seasonal extremes,” stated Kim Stephens, Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia


    “A message of hope is paramount in these times of droughts, forest fires, floods AND housing affordability as system resiliency is being stressed. Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery is essential to the solution. If done right, I see it as being at the core of Risk Management. It is a mechanism that can still be leveraged to achieve informed and superior planning for land and water. But local government politicians and staff are being overwhelmed by the issues of the day. That is their current reality. They are losing sight of the big picture,” stated Kim Stephens.

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    SCIENCE, WATERSHED-BASED DRAINAGE PLANNING AND EAP, THE ECOLOGICAL ACCOUNTING PROCESS – “EAP is thinking about more purposefully managing creeks and ponds that are integrated into our stormwater drainage infrastructure,” stated Dr. Dave Preikshot, Senior Environmental Specialist with the Municipality of North Cowichan


    “EAP has a very practical application. MNC is very limited in its ability to manage agricultural land. What we are really seeking to achieve through our involvement in the EAP Partnership is an understanding of what policy options are available to us to work with the farming community. MNC is assessing ways to work with the farming community to implement riparian management changes because you really need to think in terms of the whole-system ecosystem. The stream corridor is part of a bigger story, and it is integrating that into a bigger story,” stated Dr. Dave Preikshot.

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    FLASHBACK TO 2007: “We will be implementing green solutions as an alternative to conventional engineered blue solutions,” stated Rémi Dubé, Drainage Planning Manager with the City of Surrey, when he explained the provincial significance of the Fergus Creek watershed plan at a cross-border conference


    One of the questions addressed by a cross-border panel at a conference in 2007 was this: What lessons can Washington State and British Columbia learn from each other as they strive to minimize the impacts of rainwater/stormwater runoff? “The science-based analytical methodology that we have validated through the Fergus Creek process now enables the City of Surrey and other local governments to explore the fundamental requirements both explicit and implicit in Federal Fisheries Guidelines for stream health and environmental protection,” stated Rémi Dubé.

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    RIPARIAN AREA REGULATION IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: With development of EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process, the Partnership for Water Sustainability honours the memory and legacy of the late Erik Karlsen who did so much for streamside protection in British Columbia


    The 2014 investigation and Striking a Balance report by the BC Ombudsperson identified “significant gaps between the process the provincial government had established when the Riparian Areas Protection Regulation was enacted and the level of oversight that was actually in place.” Erik Karlsen was concerned about the Ombudsperson’s findings. In 2015, he created a matrix to explain how to integrate two foundational concepts – Daniel Pauly’s “Shifting Baseline Syndrome” and Richard Horner and Chris May’s “Road Map for Protecting Stream System Integrity” – that provide a path forward for restoring riparian integrity.

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