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In 2020, Todd Pugh of CivicInfo BC had an idea for a feature called Civic Voices. This inspired the Partnership for Water Sustainability to run with the idea of stories behind the stories. “The idea is pretty simple. We run a lot of municipal press releases, but there are deeper stories to be told. We want thoughtful columns that highlight interesting ideas, concepts, or experiences. In short, we would love to hear about the journey – a behind-the-scenes story, from a first-person perspective,” stated Todd.

A look into the future by Jay Bradley in 2007 has proven prescient in foreshadowing what is happening in the post-COVID era. “What happens if lessons we are learning are not passed on and are lost when there is an exodus of experienced people with deep knowledge and understanding? What then? It takes a career to figure this stuff out,” he said. Jay Bradley’s quote nails the nub of one of the challenges of our time. Loss of understanding;. Never has storytelling been more important than it is today. And that is because knowledge is being lost at an alarming rate.

“Keep in mind that the vision is finding a way to take the broad collective and get us paddling the canoe in the same way. How do we as a community take the strengths of everyone of our partners and drive towards a shared goal through aligned activities? We are the choir. We already have this drive, this passion, and this focus to do climate sustainability and resiliency work. But the broader public does not necessarily know that. If we really want this work to be successful, we need to have someone driving the bus all the way. And as a focus of their foundational work,” stated Cindy Lise.

“My research is the first systematic review of the use and definition of the green infrastructure concept in local government plans in the US. Many plans fail to explicitly define green infrastructure. How green infrastructure is defined guides the types of projects that local governments implement, with enduring impacts to people and the urban environment. We need a new paradigm that reimagines green infrastructure to address root causes of water quality issues. But most of the academic systems are not really lined up with deep transformative action,” stated Zbigniew Grabowski.

“A unifying theme in conversations with 13 green infrastructure influencers is that staff champions in local government can only carry things so far. Only when someone who is elected takes the lead, and is the champion, does something happen. In the 2000s, everything was in alignment. The right people were in the right place at the right time. There was energy, there was passion. The regional team approach to municipal collaboration brought all the players together for a shared mission. They learned from each other; they moved forward in tandem,” stated Kim Stephens.

Neil Goeller created the vision for a community flow monitoring network that teaches and coaches stream stewards across B.C. to measure streamflow and close a data gap in community planning. With the energy generated by the Parksville 2019 Symposium, he successfully brought the idea to fruition as a provincial program in 2022. “Parksville 2019 raised awareness and encouraged volunteers to get involved. It is a word-of-mouth process to expand participation in the initiative. I see this as a slow and steady, organic process to grow the collaboration,” stated Neil Goeller.

Erik Karlsen had a remarkable impact on the shape of BC communities. He was always where the action was – where creative and innovative energies were flowing. His ability to gravitate to that action – and to ‘morph’ into whatever current political form it was taking – was a real feature of Erik’s career. He had a job description like any other employee in the public service, but no supervisor, Assistant Deputy Minister or Deputy Minister, ever had the slightest idea what Erik actually did with his time. His trademark was that he got good things done.

“”In the 1990’s, water management in BC lagged decades behind other Canadian jurisdictions. Lynn Kriwoken saw a future of recurring drought, conflicts and urgent need for strong water legislation for BC. With single-mindedness, she articulated her vision to successive governments (NDP and Liberal) and convinced them to take legislative action. Amazingly, Lynn led these and other legislative reforms over a very short and politically unstable period of two decades, a testament to her ability to work effectively across bi-partisan lines,” stated Mike Wei.

Mike Tanner is the waterbucket.ca visionary. His leadership got the website off the ground and online within 12 months of the inaugural meeting of founding partners in 2004. He did the heavy lifting that brought together provincial ministries and so many others for a common purpose. “Somebody had to put up the initial seed funding to build support for the waterbucket.ca idea. And that is what I was able to bring from BC Hydro with a $5000 contribution from the Power Smart program. Champions within other agencies quickly jumped on board and we were on our way,” stated Mike Tanner.

“Urban streams are rarely managed as ecological systems or as municipal assets. Rather, they are sliced and diced to suit land development objectives. And this has consequences. If land use intensity increases to levels that destroy the conditions of the stream, then there will be no stream asset to produce ecological services. Communities need annual budgets to tackle Riparian Deficits along streams. EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process, gives them that number,” stated Tim Pringle.