Water-Centric Planning

“The partnership umbrella provided by the Water Sustainability Action Plan has allowed the Province to leverage partnerships to greatly enhance the profile and resulting impact of Living Water Smart. In effect, the Action Plan partners are functioning as the on-the-ground Living Water Smart implementation arm with local government, allowing my team to focus on legislative reform. Living Water Smart comprises 45 commitments grouped into five themes. The Action Plan has played a key delivery role in two of the five,” stated Lynn Kriwoken.

Published in March 2002 by the Greater Vancouver Regional District, the “Watershed / Landscape-Based Approach to Community Planning” was developed by an interdisciplinary working group and is the genesis of “water-centric planning”. “An important message is that planning and implementation involves cooperation among all orders of government as well as the non-government and private sectors,” stated Erik Karlsen.

“Originally, this COI was to be called Watershed-Based Planning for consistency with the community planning element of the Water Sustainability Action Plan. However, federal and provincial funding enabled us to broaden the scope of the COI to encompass a spectrum of perspectives, ranging from provincial watershed planning to local government community planning. This expanded scope is an ambitious undertaking. We are excited by the challenges that integration of perspectives involves,” stated Robyn Wark.

“As our population expands, this creates intense competition around land usage. As municipalities become increasingly built out, political pressure around the long-held provincial Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) is intensifying. As we move forward into increasingly uncertain geopolitical times, we also need to take a sober look at the risks associated with dependence on a foreign food supply. As we move forward into increasingly uncertain geopolitical times, we also need to take a sober look at the risks associated with dependence on a foreign food supply, “stated Danielle Synotte.

We share our world view through our stories and storytelling This is how we pass on our oral history. Storytelling is the way we share intergenerational knowledge, experience and wisdom. “Storytelling is the commonality of all human beings, in all places, in all times,” stated Professor Rives Collins, Northwestern University, author of “The Power of Story: Teaching Through Storytelling”.

“The storm caused more than $110 million in insured damaged according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, reported the Canadian Press on November 15, 2024. This created a teachable moment. And the ‘streams and trees’ component of the Metro Vancouver region’s Draft Interim Liquid Waste Management Plan provides the springboard to a re-set and course correction in 2025. Lessons from the past inform the future. Political endorsement of the Draft Plan is a critical first step to reverse past failures and get it right,” stated Kim Stephens,

“Food security, land security and water security are not separate issues. They are one and the same. Agricultural land use inventories give us accurate data on irrigated food lands in the Fraser Valley, both existing and potential. If we invest in the infrastructure needed to supply water from the Fraser River, we can increase the irrigated area by 30,000 hectares in the Fraser Valley alone. Thanks to satellite imagery, British Columbia has a powerful capability for understanding exactly what is happening on the land,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

Mike Harcourt talked about the cross-border collaboration that was his bigger picture context for the Georgia Basin Initiative. In turn, it provides context for Metro Vancouver’s Livable Region Strategic Plan. This was deemed to be the region’s first regional growth strategy when Minister of Municipal Affairs Minister Darlene Marzari approved it in February 1996. Cross-border collaboration, the George Basin Initiative and Livable Region Strategic Plan are nested layers for integrating planning, engineering and environmental perspectives to create livable communities!

When the Metro Vancouver region’s first Liquid Waste Management Plan was adopted in 2001, it established a precedent with a “streams and trees” component. “This was the work of the interagency Stormwater Management Technical Advisory Task Group. It was clear to the Task Group that engineering solutions alone would not result in good stormwater management and environmental protection, nor address regulatory infraction risk. Because the status quo was not working, the municipalities were feeling the pressure to change course,” stated Robert Hicks.

In 1990, an action plan provided a regional framework for maintaining and enhancing the livability of Metro Vancouver. Between January and June 1990, Creating Our Future produced some really important basic ideas, like environmental management and stewardship of water. And also a transportation system that put walking, cycling, goods movement and transit ahead of the private use of the private automobile. These had never been researched; they were taken as value statements and bolted into the vision. That led to the Livable Region Strategic Plan,” stated Ken Cameron.

“The Regional District of Nanaimo had an early interest in EAP. We 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. French Creek has multiple, notable characteristics, one of which is that it is a large creekshed. And so it was decided quite early on that it should be a two-year study rather than one year,” stated Murray Walters.

‘”The Departure Creek project in the City of Nanaimo was an exciting analysis because we gained insight into social perceptions of the worth of the creek. This was an add-on layer to the EAP technical analysis. We were fortunate that Departure Creek has a strong stewardship group,” stated Anna Lawrence “During this 3-year transition strategy, we are really delving into how can EAP be used, and why and how it is useful. Now that I am immersed in it, I like the fact that each creek has a different angle that you can work with…each with a different context, different people, different story.”

“When I reflect on the organizational amnesia that I am currently observing in local government, the word FEAR comes into my mind, although it is not said out loud. You hear the term CAO roadkill at lot. With the high turnover at the top, and the exodus of experienced people, the situation is fragile. Yet there is a reluctance to ask for help from those with experience, knowledge and… yes, wisdom. In fact, there seems to be a fear of independent advice unless it is totally supportive of the direction that the people at the top want to go in,” stated Pete Steblin.