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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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    DESIGN WITH NATURE TO CREATE LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECT STREAM HEALTH: “We must inspire elected representatives to become champions and do the right thing,” stated Darrell Mussatto, former mayor of North Vancouver City


    “Transitioning to a new council is a challenge, and always has been. We need a better way to pass along the knowledge we gained to the newly elected ones without them feeling like the old crew are still in charge. We had our time in the office. Now it is their turn to carry the baton and be the champions,” stated Darrell Mussatto. “In some situations, it may be good to have a new group of elected people come in and straighten things out if things are being done poorly. But when you lose staff continuity in a well-run municipality, that changes everything.”

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    RESTORE THE BALANCE IN THE WATER BALANCE: “From green roofs in Toronto to Vancouver’s rain city strategy, Canadian cities are looking to become ‘sponges’ in order to help mitigate some of the effects of extreme rainfall events,” wrote Morgan Lowrie of the Canadian Press (October 2023)


    “The goal is to reverse some of the harm done by decades of car-oriented urban development, which involved replacing natural spaces that soak up water with impermeable infrastructure such as roads and parking lots,” wrote Morgan Lowrie. “Green infrastructure can be incorporated into a landscape in many ways, from simple tree planting to rain gardens, swales, holding ponds and more complex bioretention systems that involve layers of filtering. Across Canada, cities appear to be jumping on board. The “sponge city” model brings multiple benefits.”

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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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    REALITY CHECK FOR ADAPTING TO A CHANGING SEASONAL WATER BALANCE: “We must start and end with the stream for a true measure of green infrastructure success. Maintain stream flow duration to protect against stream erosion and flooding,” stated Jim Dumont, rainwater management thought leader (October 2023)


    For three decades, we have known what we must do. So why are streams still degrading? Why has our region fallen behind Washington State, Oregon and California? And what are the RISKS when we FAIL to get it right? “While many advances have been made in managing rainwater on-site, BC communities are failing to utilize practices that directly benefit streams during droughts and floods. The needs of BC communities closely align with the other west coast areas that suffer from adverse stream flows rather than the degradation of water quality which is the case on the east coast,” stated Jim Dumont.

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    WHAT IS GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE, REALLY: “Cities are increasingly incorporating ideas for ‘green infrastructure’ into their planning, but what they mean by that can be unclear and inconsistent within and across cities,” wrote Maria Rachal, editor of Smart Cities Dive, in her article about recently published findings from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (January 2022)


    City planners often fail to clearly define “green infrastructure,” although they tend to favor hydrological or stormwater concepts in such projects, according to a study by the New York-based Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. The report calls for a clearer and more comprehensive definition as part of a larger project assessing equity in cities’ ecological services. The empirical study is the first of its kind. It is part of a multiyear project assessing green infrastructure’s role as “a universal good.”

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    TOWARD A MORE INCLUSIVE DEFINITION OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE: “Green infrastructure is broadly understood to be a good thing, but many city plans lack a clear definition of what it actually is. Hydrological definitions dominate. This narrow view can cause cities to miss out on vital social and ecological services that more integrative green infrastructure can provide,” stated Dr. Zbigniew Grabowski, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, lead author of a nationwide analysis of GI plans from 20 American cities (January 2022)


    “City planning often fails to explicitly define “green infrastructure” (GI), but when it does, stormwater concepts of GI are much more prevalent than landscape or integrative concepts. Types of GI vary widely and significantly, and often exclude parks and larger urban green spaces in favor of smaller engineered facilities. Functions of GI are primarily hydrological, although more functional diversity is provided by landscape and integrative definitions of GI. Stormwater concepts appear to engage in greenwashing by purportedly offering the greatest number of benefits,” stated Dr. Zbigniew Grabowski.

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    RAIN GARDEN INNOVATION: “Delta implemented an integrated design team with Sarah Howie as the landscape architect, a design engineer and drafting staff to work with local stream keepers. Engineering operations staff provided in-field installation and implementation expertise,” stated Hugh Fraser, retired Deputy Director of Engineering, City of Delta


    Shared responsibility is a foundation piece for Delta’s rain garden program. “Everyone in the process, students, designers, managers and constructors, must understand and care about the big-picture goal. This requires an ongoing educational process that instills an ethic. This is a team effort. Nothing would have happened without all working together and continuing to work together. Creating a watershed health legacy will ultimately depend on how well we are able to achieve rain water management improvements on both public and private sides of a watershed,” stated Hugh Fraser.

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