Water-Centric Planning

LIVING WATER SMART IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “Integration is the KEY MESSAGE – integration with the ecosystem, recreation, land use, and community groups. Use effective green infrastructure, lighten the ‘water footprint’, and protect stream health,” stated Carrie Baron, former Drainage Manager with the City of Surrey

November 14, 2023 - Posted in Living Water Smart in BC, Living Water Smart: The Series, published in 2023

Note to Reader:

Published by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia, Waterbucket eNews celebrates the leadership of individuals and organizations who are guided by the Living Water Smart vision. The edition published on November 14, 2023 featured Carrie Baron. Leadership and innovation defined her professional career as Drainage Manager at the City of Surrey from 1997 through 2021. Carrie Baron has consistently been on the leading edge in advancing green infrastructure and protecting stream health.

Shifting the ecological baseline to replicate a healthy watershed requires boldness

“In my experience, three words define Carrie Baron’s engineering career: leadership, innovation and science. Carrie Baron has consistently been on the leading edge in advancing green infrastructure and protecting stream health. She is passionate about learning by doing,” stated Kim Stephens, Waterbucket eNews Editor and Partnership Executive Director.

“Both Carrie Baron and Samantha Ward are valuable sources of oral history. To provide the interested reader with a fuller picture, the complete interviews are included as an appendix to the downloadable version of this edition of Waterbucket eNews.”

Improve planning and engineering practices

“Surrey is one of two Metro Vancouver municipalities that have a history of leadership over decades in:

undertaking original and science-based research,
doing demonstration applications, and
hosting “convening for actions” forums for peer-based learning on multiple occasions.”

“Carrie Baron played a leadership role in getting multiple intergovernmental initiatives off the ground. Among her many contributions that earned Carrie recognition as a Lifetime Member of the Partnership, three stand out:

founding partner in the Water Balance Express program.
founding representative for the Metro Vancouver region in the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative (IREI); and
hosting and co-developing the curriculum for the Course on the ISMP Course Correction.”

“The other municipality is the District of North Vancouver where Richard Boase is the champion. He and Carrie Baron collaborated to provide peer-based learning. But that is a story for another day.”

Quotable Quote:

“The more you learn, the more you try to bring in,” says Carrie Baron. “That was always the key – we knew that as technology advanced and we learned more, we had to change.”

Story of the Metro Vancouver region’s Green Infrastructure Journey (1997-2023)

The “story behind the story” that follows weaves quotable quotes by Carrie Baron and Samantha Ward into a succinct storyline. This preview about the Surrey experience is extracted from:

“This legacy resource will be published early in 2024. There is so much oral history to be documented. It is a story that begins in 1997 with passage of the Fish Protection Act. However, the genesis is actually the 1970s. Thus, the story is truly intergenerational in nature,” concludes Kim Stephens.

To Learn More:

To read the complete story, download a copy of Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Shifting the ecological baseline to replicate a healthy watershed requires boldness. The downloadable version includes a Bonus Feature – the complete interviews with Carrie Baron and Samantha Ward.

DOWNLOAD A COPY: https://waterbucket.ca/wcp/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023/11/PWSBC_Living-Water-Smart_Carrie-Baron-on-green-infrastructure-evolution-in-Surrey_2023.pdf