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“The notion of a superficial understanding explains the challenge that I am seeing. There are post-2000 graduate engineers coming out of university who are familiar with green infrastructure ideas and concepts, but they do not know the details behind them: details that they did not have to know at university or in their previous jobs. Sure, they understand rainwater management ideas and concepts at a high level. But without the background and history, can they really appreciate why certain targets and approaches were selected while others were not?” stated Robert Hicks.

“In the 2000s, Fergus Creek was the first of the new generation of watershed plans in the City of Surrey. The Fergus Creek plan showed why and how contiguous greenways make rainwater management easier and provide the land we need to actually achieve multi-purpose outcomes. In 2009, we framed the nature of the paradigm-shift with this statement: Surrey is moving beyond green infrastructure pilot projects to a broader watersheds objectives approach. From this precedent emerged the framework for Surrey’s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy,” stated Rémi Dubé.

“You observe what happens. And then you can try to apply that understanding in your simulations or your designs when building something. Look at things! Do not just sit in a room with a computer. You have got to be out there watching and trying to understand what is happening in nature. I describe this as research with a purpose. In the Sustainability Charter (2008) we made a commitment that the City would not just ask developers to do things. We said we would do those things on City developments as well. And we would test them at our own cost,” stated Carrie Baron.

“As years pass, we tend to forget or take the early innovation for granted. We learned a lot from our East Clayton experience, and we adapted our approach in subsequent Surrey neighbourhoods. The East Clayton experience gave us confidence to implement new green infrastructure objectives in the next two plans. The Fergus Creek watershed plan followed. It was the inspiration for going beyond the Stormwater Guidebook. Surrey provided core content for the seminar that launched the provincial initiative in 2007,” stated Paul Ham.

“You get elected, and you start to learn. And you become inspired by what you see happening. I remember when the Fish Protection Act passed in 1997, and municipalities were required to have setbacks in creeks. This happened in my first term on council and was quite a challenge for us. This experience was my context when I served on and later chaired the Metro Vancouver Utilities Committee a decade later. The region’s Integrated Liquid Waste and Resource Management Plan (LWMP) was another learning experience for me,” stated Darrell Mussatto.

“Technical knowledge is not enough. You learn that technical competence alone is not going to get you there. That is what I want to pass on to people. If you have a technical problem, it is relationships that matter most. Strong relationships help make the Bowker Creek Initiative agile. We need agility because we do not have the time and resources. At one level, all of us are too busy. At another level, and given the challenges posed by the issues of the day, we need to move on opportunities very quickly. Over a career, you do learn that it is all about understanding people. Technical knowledge is incidental sometimes,” stated Jody Watson.

“The work of the Drinking Water and Watershed Protection program (DWWP) is strategic. It is community based, and makes links interdepartmentally and with external agencies. And that in itself is the super power of what we do. It does not fit into a box of what a usual local government service is or does. The objective and mission of the DWWP program has always been about connecting land and water management. But the RDN couldn’t just leap straight there. We first had to build partnerships, trust, datasets and knowledge. We had to test ideas, learn, earn credibility, and deepen relationships across jurisdictions,” stated Julie Pisani

“Going back to the 1990s, and the start of watershed-based planning approaches, Coquitlam has been involved in pilot projects that put these theories to the test. Since then they have continued to take concepts introduced regionally, and implement them incrementally, each effort building on the successes or lessons of the last. In the process, Coquitlam learned by doing. Changing the way we do things means taking on new challenges and not always getting it entirely right the first time. But all attempts generally have some salvageable elements to move forward on,” stated Melony Burton.

The late Erik Karlsen conceived and championed the idea of a Watershed/Landscaped-Based Approach to Community Planning. His last assignment while in government was to collaborate with a Metro Vancouver interdisciplinary working group to produce the conceptual framework for the approach. The underpinning premise is that resource, land use and community design decisions will be made with an eye towards their potential impact on the watershed. is a prime application of the ‘watershed/landscape-based’ approach.

“Utilities, roads, parks and recreation take up the bulk of a municipal budget. Once we made the mental transition to view ecological services as core municipal services, and looked at the municipal budget differently, we then asked ourselves: how can we do things better? We stopped work on the rainwater management plan and changed the plan focus to the Package of Ecological Services – how can we get the best package for them? All plan elements were redesigned; and residential density was concentrated to maximize public access,” stated Marvin Kamenz.