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Mayors and Chief Administrative Officers representing the four Comox Valley local governments dropped in to show their support for the 2008 Learning Lunch Seminar Series. Sandy Gray, City of Courtenay CAO, lauded the objectives of the Learning Lunch Seminar Series. “We are thrilled by the work of CAVI. It is a tremendous initiative. The cooperation that is taking place around a consistent approach to development is very critical to all of Vancouver Island,” stated Sandy Gray.

“I created the graphic several years ago for a meeting with the Board of the Okanagan-Similkameen Regional District about the water sustainability component of their Regional Growth Strategy. I knew that if I did not have their attention on the first slide, I would not have their attention on the second,” stated Kim Stephens.

“Flooding was caused by undersized culverts and poor grading. Traditional engineering solutions would have resulted in a linear total loss of habitat, would have significantly impacted on private property, and the costs were well beyond the the financial capacity of the Town. Instead, a course of action involving a suite of solutions was chosen. First and most important was a commitment by all jurisdictions to hold the line,” stated Glenn Westendorp.

The main purpose of the Comox Valley Conservation Strategy is to prioritize sensitive ecosystems, linkages via expanded riparian strips and designated upland wildlife corridors and to create a new and exciting watershed-based land use planning framework. “The current process has the Conservation Strategy Community Partnership collaborating with Regional and Municipal planners, engineers and elected representatives to develop a new way of doing business in the Comox Valley,” stated Jack Minard.

“Our initial objective was simply to see if we could deliver continuing education in a different way. The Series has exceeded our own expectations, Our initial objective was to facilitate a consistent understanding of core technical concepts. Because local governments enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to align local actions with over-arching provincial goals, the resulting success of the Series has enabled us to move beyond that limited objective. The energy to think like a region has been unleashed,” stated Kim Stephens.

Inter-departmental participation by all member local governments effectively meant closing front counters on three Fridays for most of the day so that planning, engineering, operations and building inspection staff could attend the Learning Lunch seminars. “Each session started at 11:00am and ended at 2:30pm,” stated Peter Nilsen. “This was the right length of time to maintain the interest and energy level of participants. Three and a half hours sounds like a lot of time, but it goes quickly; and we were just scratching the surface in terms of the material that we presented.”

“In 2007, the Ministry’s first ‘water workshop’ brought together over 120 individuals representing all levels of government and local stewardship groups for a day of talks and discussion,” stated John Deniseger. “In 2008, the focus shifted to ongoing, completed and proposed projects, studies and ideas around shared stewardship of the region’s water surface and groundwater resources. The workshop was aimed at planners at all levels of government, as well as stewardship groups involved in watershed planning.”

“Think about what it would mean to preserve the soil layer as a requirement of land development. It acts as a sponge. And what does it do? It means that gardens will use less water; and less water will runoff. We need to think simply in terms of the relationship between land and water, and the sustainability of both water supply and aquatic habitat,” stated Kim Stephens.

“In A Sound County Almanac,” stated Eric Bonham, “Aldo Leopold wrote that we abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see the land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” In Leopold’s vision of a land ethic, the relationships between people and land are intertwined: care for people cannot be separated from care for the land. A land ethic is a moral code of conduct that grows out of these interconnected caring relationships.

“Once we went back to basics and developed the concept of a Rainfall Spectrum, this then led into the concept of Performance Targets for rainwater runoff capture. The reason runoff percentage is the performance target is that municipalities exert control over runoff volume through their land development and infrastructure policies, practices and actions,” explained Kim Stephens.