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Comox is a beacon of inspiration for the Town’s water balance approach to land development. Their experience illustrates what it takes to successfully move the land development industry and engineering profession in a new direction. “Opening minds to accept changes in practice is challenging, especially when there is no direct regulatory or prescriptive requirement at the provincial level. Now that the Northeast Comox rainwater management plan is in place, water balance modeling is a requirement, and supporting bylaws help us regulate what developers must do on the ground,” stated Shelley Ashfield.

Across North America and the world, cities have bulldozed their waterways into submission. Seattle was as guilty as any until 1999 when Chinook salmon were listed as an endangered species. In 2004 biologist Katherine Lynch was sitting through yet another meeting on how to solve these problems when she had an epiphany. Maybe restoration projects were failing because they were overlooking a little-known feature damaged by urbanization: the stream’s “gut”. A stream is a system. It includes not just the water coursing between the banks but the earth, life and water around and under it.

In September 2021, Greystone Books published The Ocean’s Whistleblower. It is the first authorized biography of Daniel Pauly, a truly remarkable man. Daniel Pauly is a living legend in the world of marine biology. And he lives in British Columbia. Among his many contributions is the Shifting Baseline Syndrome. This is a foundational concept. And it goes to the heart of the vision for intergenerational collaboration.

“There is an openness and not only an admission but the acceptance that the existing green policies and practices they have now, particularly for replicating natural flow patterns in urban streams, may not hold all the answers. Even the natural world is sometimes overwhelmed by rainfall. Instead, there is a direct discussion on how to maximize greener solutions but support them with our existing infrastructure and knowledge base. This is vital for climate change adaptations as we need to plan for 50 to100 years into the future while simultaneously solving the problems of tomorrow,” stated Charles Axelsson.

“Though the City of Vancouver has an over 20-year history installing green infrastructure, until 2018, it was rarely done systematically and did not use geotechnical studies to understand how fast water could penetrate the ground underfoot. The good news is we get to learn from our peers. We get to leapfrog a bit. Some of the biggest hurdles have been simple regulations grandfathered in from another era. Meanwhile, direction from Metro Vancouver, and ultimately the province, is up in the air as the regional body updates its Regional Liquid Waste Management Plan,” said Melina Scholefield.

The Inland Kenworth truck and heavy equipment facility in the City of Nanaimo illustrates what can be accomplished through collaboration when a municipality challenges a development proponent to be innovative, green the built environment, and protect stream health. “We view this project as the one that changed the thinking of the consulting community in Nanaimo, particularly on redevelopment projects. We are turning the tide because projects are now incorporating features for rainwater runoff capture,” stated Dean Mousseau.

The City of Delta’s rain garden program evolved gradually, in the manner of any good garden — from early conversations in 1999, through the first rain garden in 2006, to the 29 school and community rain gardens in 2019. “The City has a long history of working closely with the Cougar Creek Streamkeepers on projects that improve watershed conditions. One example of this is the highly successful rain garden program, which has not only increased stormwater infiltration in our urban areas but has also created beautiful amenities in the community,” stated Mayor George Harvie.

Since entering into an innovative partnership with the United States EPA almost a decade ago, Philadelphia has become a testing ground for green technologies. Philadelphia’s program involves creating ‘greened acres’ — expanses of impervious land that are transformed either to absorb the first 1½ inches of rainfall or send it into rain gardens or other local green infrastructure systems. The City has created more than 1,500 of a projected 10,000 greened acres.

“Instead of expanding our infrastructure, we put together a plan to price, value, reuse, recycle, infiltrate, transpire or otherwise manage, every drop of rainwater we could. We started to invent the millions of ways to reduce the amount of rainwater that arrived at our sewer inlets. The goal was to consider rainwater as a commodity and a resource—if it enters a sewer drain it becomes a costly waste product,” explained Howard Neukrug, former Philadelphia Water Commissioner. “There is no single formula for success—and we still don’t know whether ultimately we will succeed.”

“Pre-1950 aerial photographs confirm that Kus-kus-sum was indeed a forested streamside area in the K’ómoks Estuary with side-channels connecting it to the adjacent Hollyhock Marsh,” stated Caila Holbrook. ”The restoration process will include removing built infrastructure from the site, removing fill, re-grading the topography of the area, planting native species and removing the steel wall. Nature will come back; it is already trying to – as trees and salt marsh plants are poking through the 1 foot deep rebar-reinforced concrete.”