Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC

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Living Water Smart BC

    POLICY FRAMEWORKS TO SHAPE URBAN DESIGN: “Erik Karlsen was the secret sauce who convened the fantastic streamside regulation discussions that created collegiality between municipalities,” recalls Susan Haid, adjunct assistant professor at the University of BC


    Susan Haid has played a leadership role in trailblazing an ecosystem-based approach to community planning in British Columbia, first with the City of Burnaby and then with Metro Vancouver. This approach also took root in her subsequent experience in the District of North Vancouver and the City of Vancouver. “In many ways, what I am teaching comes back to the same kind of framework around ecosystem-based planning which Erik Karlsen and others were advancing in the 1990s, and which is synonymous with watershed-based planning,” stated Susan Haid.

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    PATH FORWARD FOR GROUNDWATER IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “The fact that BC has such small aquifers suggests that they likely get more local than provincial attention,” states Mike Wei, former Deputy Comptroller of Water Rights


    “Given all that I have seen in BC over my 40-year career – recession in the 1980s, political instability in the 1990s, current crises in housing and food affordability, drug overdoses, health care system for an aging population, gang violence, etc., it will be difficult for water to receive sufficient and sustained attention from the BC government alone. Canada’s investment and collaboration, done in a spirit of enabling provincial and territorial capacity to manage water would allow us to keep moving forward,” stated Mike Wei in his testimony to a House of Commons Committee.

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    HOPE AND OPTIMISM DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE: “I had to learn the art of looking for hope and opportunities and silver linings in the issues of our time,” stated Zoe Norcross-Nu’u, Comox Lake Watershed Protection Coordinator


    “What I learned from my students when I was a college instructor which has served me well in my career is the realization that people need to have hope, they need to have optimism, and they especially need to believe that they can make a difference. In the early 2000s, topics like climate change and sea level rise were only just emerging as really important issues. If an instructor only presents doom-and-gloom scenarios, your students get pretty discouraged and upset,” stated Zoe Norcross Nu’u.

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    COLLABORATION – STEPPINGSTONE TO A CULTURE OF APPRECIATION: “With the advantage of hindsight and time, we now have an appreciation of the extent to which conflict defined Coquitlam’s green infrastructure journey,” stated Pete Steblin, former City Engineer and City Manager


    “Instill a culture of continuous improvement and giving back to the community so that the community elects good, well-meaning people. It is a cycle. The community elects good people to council. And councillors rely on staff to come up with ideas. The council supports those ideas and is willing to fund them. Staff carries them out. The community notices those ideas being implemented, and they are happy. It is a cycle! The community becomes even more appreciative. If you keep that cycle going, there is no end to it. The cycle actually does work,” stated Pete Steblin.

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    WATER PROTESTS HUMAN BETRAYAL: “Floods and droughts. That is how water protests human betrayal. We need a mindset change in order to affect an attitude change about water,” stated Dr. Serpil Oppermann, co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook to the Blue Humanities


    “Many of the metaphors that we find in the 19th century literary and historical texts unfortunately harbour mastering visions. They saw oceans and waterways being there to serve human purposes. But the idea behind that mindset is that water and aquatic entities are inert, incapable of expressing themselves. They are seen as commodities. They are not seen as lively, agentic beings who can feel. We affect water, and we are affected by water. It is a two-fold process. When waterways are colonized by socio-political systems as commodities, they protest,” stated Serpil Oppermann.

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    CONVENING FOR ACTION AT THE BC LAND SUMMIT: “We are saying there is a way of designing communities and making decisions differently so that outcomes are restorative in nature within the urban development context,” stated Richard Boase, Vice-President of the Partnership for Water Sustainability


    The 2024 BC Land Summit potentially represents a seminal moment in what the Partnership anticipates will be an “awakening process” leading to a fundamental attitude change about use and conservation of both land and water in British Columbia. With an attitude change, anything is possible. “At the BC Land Summit, Paul Chapman and I will tag-team to present the local government and stewardship sector perspectives, respectively. He and I are working from different directions to bring about an attitude shift,” stated Richard Boase.

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    BUILD THE NETWORK TO ACHIEVE MISSION IMPACT: “Growing the network is all about a culture change that requires a different mindset and a commitment to something bigger,” stated Dr. Jane Wei-Skillern of the University of California at Berkeley


    “Once a network is up and running and proves itself to be effective, it becomes the primary vehicle for change, rather than the individual organizations themselves. The leaders who work in this way are really competent in what they do. They have great people skills, they are good organizational managers, and they are good at seeing the big picture and identifying where they need to engage others and build the network to solve the problem. I have been studying people who have done this well and documented the patterns and themes from their work,” stated Jane Wei-Skillern.

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    INSTILL A CULTURE THAT SUPPORTS CHAMPIONS: “It takes willpower to develop a culture,” states Ramin Seifi, former General Manager of engineering and planning with Langley Township in the Metro Vancouver region


    Resource protection – for groundwater supply and fisheries habitat – is the original driver for implementing ‘green infrastructure’ in Langley. For the past two decades, Township staff have learned and adapted. “How you adapt to change is that you develop a culture where you welcome, and you try and anticipate, what a future state might be like. And then be nimble enough to adapt and adjust yourself to it. Instilling this culture takes years, sometimes generations. And that really is, I hope, the story of Langley,” stated Ramin Seifi.

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    KEEP IT SIMPLE, PRACTICAL AND IMPLEMENTABLE: “If the process is strategic and well thought out, as well as practical and implementable from the start, then it is just a matter of sticking to it until you deliver it across the line,” stated Melony Burton, Manager of Infrastructure Planning with the City of Port Coquitlam in the Metro Vancouver region


    “In my work, I continue to apply the ten principles that I developed at Coquitlam when we delivered nine Integrated Watershed Management Plans in just 10 years. Three of the 10 are universally applicable to any area of infrastructure planning: take action, start small, stay practical. Staying true to these has helped me deliver so much. Develop a really good strategy coming out of the gate and stay super focused. Do not go down rabbit holes. You can always circle back later,” stated Melony Burton

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    CARING FOR THE LAND MEANS GOING BEYOND JUST DOING ENOUGH: “Blue Ecology and EAP describe a whole-system approach to caring for our Natural Commons and ecological assets,” states Tim Pringle, a founding director and Past-President of the Partnership for Water Sustainability


    “EAP is an expression of Blue Ecology. Because nature is a system, you cannot slice and dice it. EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process, recognizes this and is a financial tool to give streams the support they need to survive in the local government setting. Streams need a place to be. If we cannot get our heads around that, we are not going to keep our streams. EAP provides a value picture of a stream system as a land use. Think of Blue Ecology as a compass in terms of how it relates to a water-first approach. The compass points the way forward. We are on a journey,” stated Tim Pringle.

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