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“Storm Water Management innovation in BC is the result of not being overly regulated. Establish sound principles. Apply them. Adapt to the specific site conditions. Do not be too prescriptive, it may take away the opportunity for innovation,” states Hugh Fraser. “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.”

Released in December 2014, ‘Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery: A BC Framework’ is a game-changer. “Sustainable Service Delivery is the New Paradigm. It is the singular aim. Sound Asset Management practices prevent in-service failure of assets which consequently cause service delivery interruptions. Therefore, Asset Management is the means to achieve the aim,” states David Allen.

“Water is the underpinning of the community, and this is why an integrated approach to settlement and land development is essential for the Comox Valley,” stated Kevin Lorette. “Water is a key component for all the regional strategies that we are currently developing simultaneously. All will have to be integrated into one plan. At the core is growth – we are bringing these strategies together in 2010 to manage growth. We will be looking at all aspects of water.”

“Where a local government regulates land use, a watershed is an integral part of the drainage infrastructure assets of the local government. More specifically, the three pathways (surface, interflow, groundwater) by which rainfall reaches streams are infrastructure assets. They provide ‘water balance services’. This has implications for asset management,” stated Richard Boase.

“The asset management process is a continuum; and nature is an integral part of a community’s infrastructure system. The process starts with the engineered assets that local governments provide. Communities will progress along the continuum incrementally as their understanding grows. By also accounting for and integrating the services that nature provides, over time they can achieve the goal of Sustainable Service Delivery for watershed systems,” states Wally Wells.

“Over the next two years, the Inter-Regional Education Program (IREI) program would progressively inform and educate an expanding network of practitioners on how to integrate watersheds systems thinking and climate change adaptation into asset management to achieve hydrologic integrity and hence avoid expensive fixes. This would result in a common understanding,” wrote Kate Miller.

“In 1996, Richard Horner and Chris May published a seminal paper that synthesized a decade of Puget Sound research to identify and rank the four factors that degrade urban streams and negatively influence aquatic productivity and fish survival. This science-based ranking provides a framework for Integrated Watershed Management,” reports Bill Derry. In the 1980s, he was one of the first stormwater utility managers in Washington State.

“Recurring region-wide consequences of water-related challenges have also prompted regional action to develop governance structures and processes to make the connections between high-level decision making and actions on the ground. The Regional Surface and Ground Water Management and Governance Study identified co-governance with First Nations as a primary condition for success in managing regional water resources,” stated Keith Lawrence.

The ‘Beyond the Guidebook Series’ documents the progress of local government champions who are leading implementation of practices that would restore hydrologic integrity after land is urbanized. “Over the next two years, we will progressively inform and educate an expanding network of practitioners on how to integrate watershed systems thinking and climate change adaptation into asset management,” stated Kim Stephens.

The Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative (IREI) provides local governments on the east coast of Vancouver Island and in Metro Vancouver with a mechanism to share outcomes and cross-pollinate experience. “Sharing of knowledge and experience through ‘organic collaboration’ is vital because peer-to-peer learning is what practitioners respect most,” observes Thomas White.