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“The Regional District of Nanaimo demonstrates commitment to watershed initiatives and water sustainability by delivering the Drinking Water & Watershed Protection Service with a long-term reliable funding source,” stated Julie Pisani. “This allows us to effectively leverage support from partners, because we are in it for the long came and we are coming to the table with some resources to get started. Not fund the whole thing, but get it off the ground and generate collaboration.”

The county is currently developing a plan which would fund construction of cisterns, rain gardens, and other infrastructure to collect and store as much as 100 billion additional gallons of rainwater per year. That’s enough water to meet 20 percent of L.A.’s current demand. “When you look at what we are importing into L.A. County, it’s about 60 percent of our local supply,” Mark Pestrella said. “That’s a problem from an economic standpoint, and from a pollution standpoint.”

“Planning will be an effective tool where the need is great, and where other area-based management tools are not able to address the links between land use and watershed impacts,” stated Jennifer Vigano. The Water Sustainability Act allows for the development of Water Sustainability Plans. These collaboratively developed plans can integrate water and land use planning and can be combined with other local, regional or provincial planning processes to address water-related issues.

“Like other locations in the province, the region is experiencing change: population growth as more residents are attracted to the area; climate change that manifests as longer, drier summers and more frequent short-duration intense rainstorms; and an evolving regulatory landscape that opens up possibilities for local water management,” explained Julie Pisani. “The solid foundation developed in the first 10 years provides a great opportunity to move forward. Will other regions take notice and follow in RDN’s footsteps?”

“PlaceSpeak is designed for how Canadians behave in a digital age. Individuals are in the driver’s seat, deciding how they want to participate, on what topics, and how often they wish to be notified about opportunities to provide input,”stated Marina Steffensen. “This platform will allow us to break down the feedback received, resulting in a more nuanced and meaningful understanding of how participants use and interact with the Ottawa River watershed across diverse communities.”

“With the development and launch of the Lower Coquitlam River Watershed Plan in 2015, the Roundtable is poised to implement strategies for action in partnership with local municipalities, the regional government, First Nations, and private/public stakeholders to support watershed sustainability.” states Melissa Dick. “To ensure the long-term engagement of the Roundtable in watershed initiatives and planning, sustainable funding sources are required.”

“Planning for capacity is proving especially important as the Roundtable looks forward to implementation of its Lower Coquitlam River Watershed plan over the coming years. The logistics of actually implementing watershed-wide initiatives spanning multiple jurisdictions make for uncharted territory in this watershed, however the Roundtable looks forward to taking on this new challenge and building the capacity needed to effectively do so,” states Marni Turek.

“We need both immediate-term pragmatism and visionary dedication to sustainability if we are to preserve our capacity for positive and permanent regional vitality,” observes author and visionary Eva Kras. “Vancouver Island has a huge possibility, and responsibility, to form a type of model that communities in Canada can look to for ideas, related especially to the concept of collaboration.”

“The St. Mary Lake Integrated Watershed Management Plan is a result of involvement and participation of residents, stakeholders, and community organizations who care about the long-term health of our precious watersheds,” says George Grams. “The Plan gives us the blueprint for the future, including regulations, legislation, research strategies and actions to help us meet our primary objective of improving raw lake water quality.”

“Within municipalities, drinking water, wastewater and stormwater are often treated as if they were completely different things. If we want to find the solution, we have to start understanding them as part of the same cycle,” says John Jackson. “We need to be planning all components of the cycle at once.Are we conveying stormwater into a pipe that is going off to a river or a lake, when it could be going back to recharge the groundwater aquifer from which we source our drinking water?”