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“Many communities face both wildfire and flood risks. Underpinning the findings is the fact local governments, which the province had made responsible for much of the risk reduction work, face huge costs they cannot pay,” wrote Gordon Hoekstra, lead author for the 7-part series. Four-month examination drew from responses to questions put to more than 85 municipalities, First Nations and regional districts; thousands of pages of government-commissioned, academic and other independent reports, and community wildfire and flood protection plans.

When BC’s Water Sustainability Act (WSA) came into force in 2016, “certain things were left behind”. Released in January 2022, the government’s Discussion Paper on Watershed Security Strategy represents a once per decade window of opportunity to revisit assumptions and decisions that defined the WSA scope, reflect on the context for those assumptions and decisions, and determine what action should be taken in light of new understanding. “It is possible that no water-related legislation, bylaw, plan or strategy can be applied to unvested water,” stated Mike Wei.

“Donna Forsyth and Mike Wei have drawn attention to a jurisdictional gap in the Water Sustainability Act because of the potential for a domino effect. Initially I had trouble wrapping my mind around why Waterbucket eNews would feature a topic related to water law. However, I do respect the passion Donna and Mike bring to a conversation about challenges and gaps in the Water Sustainability Act. So, I asked, is there a “story behind the story” that would interest our readers? The real issue, they emphasized, centres on what government cannot do when the water use involves unvested water,” stated Kim Stephens.

“So far, the current engagement for the Watershed Security Strategy has prioritised the questions that relate to: ‘what can First Nations and local organisations do to help with the management of BC’s water’. Our submission focused on government’s actions that we believe need to be discussed and addressed in conjunction with the Watershed Security Strategy in order to unlock the full potential for sustainable water management in BC. Since climate change is all about water – too much or too little – these changes should fit into climate related initiatives as well,” stated Donna Forsyth.

“What will the government do, come March 1, 2022? Enforce a law that it passed with broad support from both the governing party and opposition, and effectively shut businesses down by turning off their taps? Or will it turn a blind eye and allow thousands of business owners to use their water illegally, while their counterparts who did the right thing and applied for their licences follow the law? Either outcome guarantees trouble ahead and must be avoided. But before saying what needs to be done, we need to understand why we are in this mess,” stated Donna Forsyth.

“Mandates to facilitate development conflict with the protection of our water. This must change and it will require strong political leadership and the creation of a dedicated, independent and comprehensive water agency with a clear mandate to ensure the protection of our water resources as a top government priority. Last year’s floods and heat domes are a wake-up call. We can expect more and failure to make water policy changes now guarantees a torrent of trouble ahead,” stated Donna Forsyth.

“The West Coast of Canada is known for its wet autumn weather, but the storm that British Columbia’s Fraser Valley experienced over the weekend of November 13-14, 2021 was one for the record books. A weather system called an “atmospheric river” flowed across the southwest corner of the province and, over a period of two days, brought strong winds and near-record amounts of rain, which caused widespread flooding and landslides,” wrote John Clague.

Ben Parfitt claims the under-resourced River Forecast Centre (RFC) was not timely in its warnings to British Columbians. “The late issuance of warnings by the RFC in the days and hours leading up to the horrendous flooding that has devastated Abbotsford, Merritt, Princeton and First Nations communities in recent weeks is coming under increasing scrutiny,” he says. Compounding problems, in Parfitt’s view, is poor communication from the government. Parfitt concludes, “In the face of silence, the flood of questions is certain to grow.”

“Our work is the first to directly investigate the impact of these ‘rivers in the sky’ on ‘rivers on the land’ using climate model projections. Focusing on the Fraser River Basin, Canada’s largest Pacific watershed, and using a business-as-usual industrial emissions scenario, we show that the basin transitions from one where peak flow results from spring snowmelt to one where peak flow is often caused by extreme rainfall,” stated Charles Curry. “What the models tell us is sort of an overview or a kind of a probability of these events getting more frequent in the future. But we just can’t say so much about the exact timing of when they’re going to occur.”

“It has been one of the most severe natural disasters to strike British Columbia in a generation, even after a year that has brought crisis after crisis. The sheer scope of the damage has been difficult to comprehend. This is a timeline of the first week, from storm touchdown to early clean-up, of a disaster which has effects that will reverberate across the province for months to come,” wrote Rhianna Schmunk. “The storm broke dozens of all-time rainfall records, dumping nearly a month’s worth of rain on some communities over 48 hours.”