LIVING WATER SMART IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “If we apply EAP to land owned by the RDN to help prove that Natural Asset Management is meaningful, and the Regional Board accepts it, then I see that as the trigger to influence other people who also have land to behave in a similar fashion,” stated Murray Walters, Manager of Water Services with the Regional District of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island

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 October 22, 2024 is the second installment in a 4-part series that showcases a successful precedent to pass the intergenerational baton and build long-term capacity within local government to implement Natural Asset Management.

Anna Lawrence, project coordinator for the EAP Transition Strategy Partnership is the guest editor for a conversation with Murray Walters, Manager of Water Services, about the Regional District of Nanaimo’s experience in advancing EAP.

 

An engineering perspective grounds Natural Asset Management

“The Regional District of Nanaimo had an early interest in EAP. So much so, the Millstone River was one of five Stage 3 projects in the 6-year program of applied research that tested, refined and mainstreamed the EAP methodology and metrics,” states Anna Lawrence of the Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Region Research Institute (MABRRI) at Vancouver Island University. Anna is the Project Coordinator for the EAP Transition Strategy Partnership.

“During that 6-year period, the Partnership for Water Sustainability relied on MABRRI staff and VIU students to do data analysis and GIS work. Now, with the EAP Transition Strategy Partnership, MABRRI is the program lead and the Partnership for Water Sustainability has an oversight and mentoring role.”

 

With French Creek, the RDN will take its Millstone River experience to another level

“The RDN selected French Creek as its first project under the EAP Partnership umbrella because it will feed into the needs analysis for the ongoing provincially community issues study in the French Creek electoral area. EAP is especially relevant to a drainage and riparian corridor protection strategy.”

 

 

“In Year One of the 3-year transition, we were learning the EAP methodology. When we began Year Two, the plan was to gather community member input and develop a research question to explore in Year Two…which is what we have done.”

“EAP has seven steps. So, in Year One we focused on the first three to start out because they are basic for any EAP analysis. In Year Two, we are building on this base of information and data that we now have for French Creek.”

 

 

Overview of the two-year program to date

“Tim Pringle explains EAP in these terms: EAP recognizes steams as ecological systems providing drainage, services for intrinsic nature, recreation, and enjoyment of property uses. A stream is a natural asset. A stream is a Natural Commons and a Social Commons. A stream is a land use.

 

Context for implementing natural asset management

Local governments apply regulation, planning, zoning and taxation based on parcels. EAP methodology aggregates and analyzes information based on parcels and uses only the assessed values of parcels for financial analysis.

Asset Management Plans need a financial value in order to include budgets for stream maintenance and management (M&M). In our Year One report, we presented the Natural Commons Asset (NCA) financial value and the M&M budgets for the entirety of the creek, as well as for individual land use categories.

Year Two Program:

We have since progressed into Year Two. Over the summer, we held an engagement session with community members, including representatives from Friends of French Creek Conservation Society, Hamilton Wetlands and Forest Preservation Society, Mosaic Forest Management, and the RDN.

The intention of this meeting was to talk about previous expenditures that had gone into French Creek over the past 10 years and  to identify, on a map, future sites for conservation and restoration.

 

The calculations for the sites within RDN jurisdiction will be the most significant. And hopefully that information will be useful to RDN to push things forward and prove to other local governments as to how Natural Asset Management can be advanced and utilized.

Illustration of spatial parameters for calculation of the NCA financial value 

The NCA value is the Inner Stream Setback Zone. Because it is defined in regulation, the NCA is a Land Use in urban and rural areas where there is land development. If the stream did not exist, the land occupied by the stream corridor would be used for residential or other development.

 

To Learn More:

To read the complete story, download a copy on Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Reflections on the 3-year transition strategy for embedding EAP at Vancouver Island University – Regional District of Nanaimo experience.

DOWNLOAD A COPY: https://waterbucket.ca/wcp/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/10/PWSBC_Living-Water-Smart_Murray-Walters-reflections-on-EAP-Partnership_2024.pdf