Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC

“Kelowna is the major population centre inside the Okanagan Lake basin. And many people take advantage of our natural elements to play, fish, camp and more. So, we have a responsibility to pay attention to what people do as a community. In developing the plan, we looked through a One Water lens to address community needs and responsibilities. Everybody has an opinion about water. Everybody! First Nations, other communities, we all share the lake. But not all have the resources we have at the City of Kelowna. We felt it important to lead by example,” stated Rod MacLean.

“Agricultural land is a public good because it serves everybody, but it is not treated as such. And that makes it difficult. Food should not be political, but it is. So here we are… losing farmland every year to industrial, non-farm use. How do we get the fruit of the ALR? You can build warehouses and industrial stuff pretty well anywhere you have a piece of property. You cannot build a farm by bringing in soil. That is what we have to protect. We have to find other places for this other stuff. Food security is at risk,” stated Christina Gemino.

In the story behind the story, Mark Angelo explains why his title is River Magic; why the Fraser River is the heart and soul of BC; and why Guichon Creek in Burnaby shows never give up. “River Magic is a collection of short stories. And I have written it in that format because I wanted to enable readers of all ages to better appreciate the allure and magic of rivers along with the need to better care for them. My goal was to make the book as accessible as possible to a wide range of audiences. That is a tough balance to strike,” stated Mark Angelo.

“The Partnership for Water Sustainability’s Mid-Year Report for 2025 provides an excellent understanding of our ‘philosophical’ rationale, how we function, and the collaborations and resources that make the Partnership effective. This is a baseline or landmark document. Structured in three parts, the Mid-Year Report describes the Partnership’s operational framework followed by a section on the ambassadors’ program. Then it weaves quotable quotes into a narrative about the Partnership’s array of initiatives.,” stated Tim Pringle.

“This is season #20 of Waterbucket eNews. We have evolved the form and function to meet a growing need for a trusted source of information, one that provides context and perspective for a changing local government setting. We draw attention to the elephant in the room. Once someone writes or says out loud what others are thinking, that starts a conversation. Headlines and supporting quotable quotes for 10 stories weave a story within a story. These sneak previews foreshadow what is coming this fall in Waterbucket eNews,” stated Kim Stephens.

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. Never has storytelling been more important than it is today. And that is because knowledge is being lost at an alarming rate.

“So you bring together a team of partners to try and figure out a way forward. Then something else whaps you on the side of the head. And you, as a collective, must figure out how to address that too. That is my experience because I get to live in a number of different worlds. But you do not have a preconceived history or notion of what it is you are going to do…because it is hitting you in a way you have never experienced before. The only way that you are going to solve a complex challenge is if you have trust in others and a willingness to try something new,” stated Cindy Lise.

Cities are murky on how they define ‘green infrastructure’. Analysis of 122 plans from 20 major cities found that many plans fail to explicitly define green infrastructure. When they do, they tend to focus on stormwater management. “Green infrastructure is broadly understood to be a good thing, but many local government plans lack a clear definition of what it is. Hydrological definitions dominate. What they mean can be unclear and inconsistent within and across local governments,” stated Zbigniew Grabowski.

“The Biodiversity Development Cost Charge Bylaw for acquiring and enhancing land in stream corridors has been in place since 2019. Surrey is the only municipality that has one. The work to create the DCC for biodiversity was initiated many years before 2019. By then, there was still some convincing to do. But people had pretty well committed to it. There was a sense that: we cannot say NO now, we have to commit to it, we have to do it based on the work done previously. It would be a lot harder to initiate something like that in 2023,” stated Rémi Dubé.

“Most of these stewardship groups draw on people who live around the streams, Who better to be out there learning and gaining experience with the tools to do the work. And then taking the knowledge gained through this process to advocate for their streams. To the best of our knowledge, nobody else in Canada has done this type of community-based network approach for hydrometrics before. There have been other types of monitoring, such as for lakes. But we are the only ones who have done it for hydrometrics,” stated Ally Badger.