This story is part of Going with the Flow, a series that dives into how restoring nature can help with B.C.’s flood problems — and what’s stopping us from doing it.

Heavy rains have once again fallen in B.C., bringing back memories of a year ago when an atmospheric river flooded the Fraser Valley. The storm destroyed infrastructure and killed five people, hundreds of thousands of chickens, thousands of pigs and hundreds of cows. It cost billions in damage and losses and blocked highways and a railway for weeks. 

Since then, all levels of government, First Nations, other residents and agriculture and environmental groups have been hashing out how best to protect the area for the future, anticipating the next storm. 

But the question of how exactly to “build back better” on land that was once water — especially as climate change makes extreme weather events more common — is exposing tensions about whether or not we should build back in certain areas at all.

An atmospheric river in 2021 caused extensive flooding in the Fraser Valley in B.C., in an area that was once a lake but was drained to make way for agriculture. Photo: Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press

“If this road was washed out, what’s the likelihood of that road washing out again?” asked Tyrone McNeil, Stó:lō Tribal Council Chief and chair of the First Nations Emergency Planning Secretariat. “Let’s relocate that road and put in a bridge instead of a culvert. That will actually save us money over time.”

McNeil is part of a growing chorus of people around the world who believe that returning space to water can help protect communities from climate change, including bigger floods and droughts. That’s because it’s not just climate change causing these disasters, but also development choices that have interfered with the natural water cycle. 

Globally, 87 per cent of natural wetlands have been lost in the last 300 years, nearly all of them filled or drained by humans. People have intervened with dams and diversions on two-thirds of the world’s great rivers. Land area covered by cities, blocking water from sinking into the soil, has doubled just since 1992. To counteract this problem people are seeking to heal the water cycle by protecting and restoring wetlands, floodplains, mountain meadows and forests to help make communities more resilient. 

But relocating people and infrastructure is emotionally and politically difficult, which is why so-called “managed retreat” — planning to move a community out of hazardous areas in an equitable, just way — often only happens after repeated disasters. Instead, solutions proposed tend toward doubling down on human-designed engineering that attempts to control water.

How many disasters will it take in the Fraser Valley? Climate change may soon force the issue, McNeil said. 

Tyrone McNeil, Stó:lō Tribal Council Chief and chair of the First Nations Emergency Planning Secretariat, believes returning space to water can help prevent future disasters. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

“The Lower Mainland flood management strategy needs a hard reset,” McNeil said, referring to the plan that is primarily considering engineered interventions, such as raising dikes, dredging rivers and building more in flood-prone areas by raising the land first. “We need to be included in discussions as rights holders, not stakeholders. From there we put forward principles of salmon habitat, ecology, slowing the water, water storage.”

The province often seems more driven by election cycles, McNeil said. In contrast, his people make decisions based on caring for the next seven generations. “The dominant culture needs to have everybody’s interest [including other species] at heart on the table, not only those who are rich enough.” 

Under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, both the federal and provincial governments have pledged to incorporate Indigenous world views. 

More nature-based solutions need to be considered, collaborative says 

Federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair said Canada is being thoughtful about its approach to flood recovery. 

“We’re looking at this whole idea of designing resilience into our build back to make sure that we invest in things that respect nature,” he said in an interview. “At the same time, we need to respond to what is clearly a changing and more volatile condition that we have to deal with: climate change.”

The total cost to rebuild the Fraser Valley will exceed $9 billion, according to Blair, the latest in a century-long engineering effort to hold back four big rivers and pump out water from a lake that’s routinely trying to reoccupy its space. But the typical pattern for such disasters, supported by current provincial programs, is to build back to “the pre-disaster condition,” with little funding for what are dubbed “preventative measures” or “enhancements.”

That was the case after a big flood in the region in 1948, said Tamsin Lyle, lead engineer with Ebbwater Consulting, which specializes in helping communities mitigate risks from climate change. During that earlier build back, “the mandate was not to reduce risk to public safety but to reestablish public faith in the diking system,” she said.

Tamsin Lyle, lead engineer with Ebbwater Consulting, thinks funding for disaster mitigation needs to include nature-based solutions. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Today, on the federal level, up to 15 per cent of disaster funding is earmarked for “mitigation” — but that’s not yet defined, according to Lyle. “It might be an opportunity to make your dike a little bit higher, but there’s no mechanism to say, ‘Hey, what if we didn’t have a dike at all?’ ”

McNeil and Lyle are part of the Build Back Better, Together Collaborative, an Indigenous-led working group that came together after the storm to help with flood recovery. The collaborative issued a press release last week to increase pressure on the provincial government to use what’s left of the billions of dollars of federal funding announced in December to support “best practices,” especially nature-based solutions. This would align with the federal and provincial governments’ commitments to the international Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The framework outlines disasters as opportunities to rethink standard practices, noted the release.

The dominant culture’s mindset toward flooding needs to change, Lyle said, citing a 2014 paper in which international experts laid out the golden rules for flood management. Number one is accepting it’s impossible to prevent all flooding. Number two is to promote some flooding as desirable. That’s because, if people don’t give water enough space, it will take it by force. So it’s better to plan ahead where people can best tolerate it. 

“It’s not just climate change causing these disasters,” Lyle said, but also “stupid human decisions. We’re on the cusp of that recognition in Canada: that big engineering has failed us.” 

The typical pattern for rebuilding after disasters like B.C.’s floods is to build back to “the pre-disaster condition,” with little funding for what for preventative measures or nature-based solutions. Photo: B.C. Ministry of Transportation / Flickr

Perhaps the November 2021 flood will be a catalyst. To some extent, the province is supporting what are known as nature-based solutions, according to an email from a spokesperson for Emergency Management B.C., which did not make someone available for an interview. 

The spokesperson pointed to the B.C. Flood Strategy, open for public comment this fall, and “modernization” of its emergency management legislation, set for spring 2023, which strives to manage risk, rather than prevent disasters, and to co-develop the strategy with Indigenous Peoples under the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In B.C.’s 2022 budget, the province allocated $2.1 billion “to help people recover from the devastating floods and wildfires of last year and to better protect communities against future climate disasters,” according to a news release. Provincial programs, including $81.8 million for Green Infrastructure: Adaptation, Resilience and Disaster Mitigation and $110 million in budget 2022 for the province’s Community Emergency Preparedness Fund, could support nature-based solutions — but the money could also go toward engineered infrastructure.

“The flood gave a lot of people the idea that we need to work together,” Semá:th Chief Dalton Silver said. “I was able to present our position on a lot of things.” But both Silver and McNeil believe more is needed. 

“The extent of the consultations are not where they should be,” Silver said. 

McNeil added that the more settler governments open themselves up to Indigenous perspectives, the more they would benefit. “We’re actually alleviating risk for government by seeing our values reflected,” he said.

A long history of fighting against nature

At the heart of the debate around restoring space for water to prevent future flooding is Semá:th X̱ó:tsa (Sumas Lake).

A hundred years ago, Semá:th X̱ó:tsa lay between the current cities of Abbotsford and Chilliwack and stretched across the border into Whatcom County, Wash. It pulsed like a heartbeat, ebbing and expanding with the fall rains and freshet, or spring floods. It regularly went from 36 square kilometres to 65, frequently expanding far more in flood years, according to Chad Reimer, author of Before We Lost the Lake: A Natural and Human History of Sumas Valley. For the Semá:th (Sumas First Nation) and other bands in the Stó:lō Nation, the lake “was the provider for our people,” Silver said, extolling the bounty of sturgeon, salmon, mussels, trout, ducks and deer. The sturgeon also provided a strong, organic glue called eisenglass that was a major trade item. 

The Stó:lō Nation built no permanent structures on the shores of Semá:th X̱ó:tsa, pictured here in the early 1900s before it was filled in by settlers who converted the lake to farmland. That farmland is now prone to flooding. Photos: City of Vancouver Archives

Bands of the Stó:lō Nation accepted water’s agency and worked within its rhythms. “We moved before the freshet,” McNeil said.

Silver explained they built no permanent structures on the wetlands surrounding the lake, and seasonal movements were intrinsic in their teachings.“My grandfather said the Stó:lō — which means river or water — is regarded as the great giver of life, but you need to be careful when you’re out there, travelling or harvesting fish,” Silver said. “Water is also a very powerful entity that can take your life as well.”

But settlers saw the lake as blocking them from perfectly good farmland, according to Reimer. “The view of the western world is very much a binary one,” Reimer said in an interview. “Stuff is either land or water. And where you have water on top of good land, you’ve got to get rid of that water.” 

Over a 50-year period, settlers endeavoured to turn water to land, eventually succeeding, more or less, in 1924. According to Reimer, it took 142 kilometres of dikes, canals and diversion ditches; floodgates to prevent river overflows into the lakebed; and a pump station. They optimistically redubbed the place Sumas Prairie and filled the former lake with homes and farms. 

The 1,375-kilometer Fraser River flows from headwaters in Mount Robson Provincial Park, near Jasper National Park, and winds its way to the ocean. The Sumas River rises in Washington, crosses the international border, then travels through the Sumas Canal (built on the edge of what was Semá:th X̱ó:tsa) to its confluence with the Chilliwack River (which also flows from Washington) and on to the Fraser. Map: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

In November 2021, “nothing surprised me about where the water wanted to go,” Reimer said. “The natural hydraulic conditions that created Sumas Lake are still there. We’re just holding it back.”

Bringing back Semá:th X̱ó:tsa (Sumas Lake) is not being considered

Despite ongoing concerns about flooding, the City of Abbotsford is not considering bringing back the lake or much in the way of nature-based solutions, according to an overview of its preferred option for long-term flood mitigation.

“I’m not sure how you would do that in Sumas Prairie, with all of the infrastructure that runs through there, including Highway 1, railways, pipelines transmission and hydro transmission lines,” Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun said.

The Fraser Valley corridor is home to important infrastructure. Rebuilding after a storm, critics argue, presents the opportunity to better protect communities — if governments take into account what are known as the golden rules of flood management, including the impossibility of preventing all flooding. Photo: B.C. Ministry of Transportation / Flickr

Lyle told The Narwhal the city seems to be taking a “build back bigger” rather than a “build back better” approach. “Abbotsford wants dikes up in 10 months,” she said.

The trouble with Abbotsford’s plan is “they haven’t considered the fragility of that system,” Lyle said, despite having just seen it fail. The Barrowtown pump station, which keeps the lakebed dry, was saved only because hundreds of people rushed to build sandbag walls around it through the night. If it had failed, water would have sat in the lakebed for months. “They’re not taking a risk lens to it,” Lyle said. “They just assume that engineers can get this right.” 

Dikes present a bit of a “catch-22,” Lyle explained. “The more you squish up the dikes, the faster and higher the water flows and the more likely the dike is to fail.”

The city’s plan is to build bigger dikes, with a few small setbacks to allow a little more space for water, and an additional pumping station, the latter of which would cost $800 million, according to Braun. 

“I’m responsible under the community charter to protect infrastructure and residents,” he said. 

The Sumas dike in Abbotsford, B.C. was repaired after flood damage. The government plans to build bigger dikes to prepare for future floods — part of an approach some say is “totally wrong.” Photos: City of Abbotsford / Twitter

Lyle said she appreciates his motivation. “Mayor Braun has really got his community at heart and feels like he’s protecting his community, but he’s just doing it — in my very biased opinion — totally wrong.”

Tara Martin, a forestry professor at University of British Columbia, Semá:th Councillor Murray Ned and their colleagues question whether building more infrastructure to hold back water is the best environmental, socially just and financial decision. 

Together, they are working on a peer-reviewed paper, calculating that buying out landowners and moving homes and business to higher ground to allow Semá:th X̱ó:tsa to reflood would cost about $3 billion, compared with $4.5 billion to maintain the status quo through 2050. Beyond that, ongoing costs are more uncertain. Restoring the lake would also be a start toward righting colonial wrongs, the authors wrote in a Globe and Mail op-ed, and help save 70 species currently at risk of extinction. 

Minister Blair acknowledged that it “may not be the right thing to rebuild” everywhere. But that principle seemingly doesn’t extend to Sumas Prairie. “I don’t think anyone is talking about returning the lake,” he said. “We’re always interested in the economic case. But it’s also about community and the activities they’re involved in,” he added, citing the area’s agricultural importance to the province and country.

Braun makes that argument too. “Fifty per cent of our dairy, poultry, eggs, turkeys, whatever it is, that’s consumed in British Columbia comes from Abbotsford,” he said. “We can do without a lot of things: food and water are not one of them.”

Reimer, who grew up in the area, is frustrated at the “unquestioned premise” that British Columbia must get its cheese, milk and eggs from the floodplains of the Fraser Valley. “That sounds completely logical, but it isn’t,” he said. “Nowadays, chickens and cows don’t see the light of day,” noting the barns they live in could be elsewhere. 

Hundreds of thousands of chickens, thousands of pigs and hundreds of cows were killed during catastrophic flooding in B.C.’s Fraser Valley, on what used to be Semá:th X̱ó:tsa. Some people are now questioning whether the numerous barns in the Fraser Valley could be moved to less flood-prone areas. Photo: Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press

Holger Schwichtenberg, chair of the B.C. Dairy Association, acknowledges that most cows today do spend most of their lives in barns and could conceivably be raised elsewhere. But getting to that point requires answering many questions that most people are not yet contemplating. 

He listed some of them: “Where would you go? How would you get the milk to market? How would landowners be compensated?” With supply chain disruptions becoming more common, “being able to supply local food is a big deal,” he said.

Reimer acknowledged that truth and said one option would be to move livestock but continue growing some current foods, like berries, which would be lower value to lose in a future flood. But with floods becoming more frequent and severe, he said it’s time to start asking those difficult questions that Schwichtenberg raised.

“It was depressingly fast how everyone was thinking, we’ll just build bigger pumps,” Reimer said.

Both Silver and McNeil are circumspect when talking about the prospect of the lake’s return. If governments were to buy up land from settlers and return the lake or parts of it, “it would go a long ways to helping with wildlife and fish habitat,” Silver said. “And some of our people would be satisfied with that.” At the same time, he said he doesn’t want to see relatives and friends, including settlers, displaced. 

Learning from Washington State’s approach to water 

A significant contributor to the November 2021 flooding came from the Nooksack River, which originates in Washington and once flowed to Semá:th X̱ó:tsa. Centuries ago, it deposited sediment which created a natural levee at Everson, Wash., turning the river left. But in November 2021, unusually high flows overtopped this natural barrier and the Nooksack once again flowed straight downhill into Abbotsford. 

Some Canadians are a little testy about that and would like Americans to hold back the water. But the last big flood on this system, in 1990, spurred Washington to take a different path, asking hard questions as a first step to changing how and where people can restore natural systems. 

A Canada-U.S. border marker is seen surrounded by floodwaters flowing into Abbotsford, B.C., from the U.S. in 2021. Cross-border talks about disaster preparedness have been underway, most notably between B.C.’s premier and Washington’s governor. Photo: Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press

Its Floodplain Integrated Planning process makes space for water, reducing flood risk, restoring habitat for salmon and boosting climate resilience for agriculture and people. The planning team includes government staff, flood control and watershed improvement districts, tribes and people like Paula Harris, Whatcom County’s river and flood engineering manager. 

“We’ve developed a lot of trust over the last few years that we’re in this together and trying to get to the same end goal,” Harris said. “There’s gotta be a lot of winners. And ideally no losers. Or if they do lose, they’re compensated for their loss.”

Abbotsford Mayor Braun said, with some incredulity, that he just recently learned that Washington decided more than two decades ago not to build a dike at Everson, instead accepting the overflow path the river has chosen. The water has to go somewhere, Harris said. “When you start diverting water from one flow path into another, you own the increased damages in that other flow. It’s hard to make a conscious decision to flood other people worse.”

Elsewhere, along other tributaries that flow into British Columbia, Washington has already set back some levees where houses were washed away in the past, giving rivers more access to their floodplains. Designers placed logjams strategically in the floodplain to deflect water’s energy away from levees. During the November 2021 floods, those projects worked as intended, protecting people from flooding, Harris said. 

McNeil said he is impressed by Washington’s efforts. “They opened up the waterways, got the support of farmers and local governments. And since they modified the land base to store water, three out of the last five years, they reached [396 cubic metres per second] and nobody’s even noticed,” he said.

McNeil advocates for incorporating Traditional Knowledge into plans for the future of Sumas Prairie, saying the B.C. government’s flood management plan for the region “strategy needs a hard reset.” Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Cross-border talks have been underway, most notably between B.C.’s premier and Washington’s governor, but also among many others in various sectors and levels of government. 

The instinct to build a wall in response to a threat is deeply ingrained in the dominant culture. “The Euro-centric view is that human values are priority,” McNeil said, “that development is the number one priority, generation of wealth.” Prioritizing human needs as more important than animals or water and its systems leads to single-focus problem solving. Need water? Build a dam and collect it from elsewhere. Concerned about flooding? Build a wall to keep the water out. 

That viewpoint is diametrically opposed to that of the Semá:th, Silver said. “From our perspective, you’re supposed to respect that waterway and everyone else that lives there [including nonhuman beings] as much as you respect one another.” 

The Fraser River is one of several flowing into the Fraser Valley. Indigenous leaders want to see their worldviews included in future planning to prevent catastrophic disasters. Photo: Colin Perkel / The Canadian Press

“There’s a lot of disrespect for everything out there that we see with the newcomers to our lands,” Silver said. “People fighting with water all the time … the very taking of the lake … was one of our very early environmental disasters.”

Blair said he’s listening. “I heard very clearly from [First Nations] the importance of incorporating Indigenous Traditional Knowledge into our response. And one of the things they did say to us is how important wetlands are to flood mitigation.” 

McNeil said the Stó:lō Nation is ready to lead, but they need buy-in from like-minded allies. To that end, he’s asking another set of hard questions: “How do we come together for our collective long-term aspirations that speak to resilience, that speak to promoting salmon and a broader ecological footprint here in the valley, rebuilding a lot of what was here before development started?” 

Updated on Nov. 14, 2022, 9:56 p.m. PT: This story was updated to correct the spelling of X̱ó:tsaUpdated on Nov. 17, 2022, 3:08 p.m. PT: A previous version of this story stated that the Fraser River flows from Jasper National Park. The story has been updated to clarify the Fraser River flows from headwaters in Mount Robson Provincial Park, near Jasper National Park.

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This story is part of Going with the Flow, a series that dives into how restoring nature can help with B.C.’s water problems — and what’s stopping us from doing it.

The residents of B.C.’s Sunshine Coast have reluctantly become accustomed to drought — having experience stage 4 drought for five of the past eight years due to dwindling water supply.

But this year, for the first time, drought triggered the Sunshine Coast Regional District to declare a local state of emergency on Oct. 17, which meant banning non-essential commercial water use for businesses like breweries and cement facilities.

While rain is beginning to provide some relief, the drought crisis is not going away any time soon — it’s only getting worse as weather becomes more unpredictable. Many who live on the Sunshine Coast say the problem has been festering for years, and solutions have been proposed but not often pursued.

The district enacted Stage 4 water restrictions on Aug. 31, which halted all outdoor water use and barred farmers from using any water for irrigation. This has had a major impact on a region that is rich with small farms and residents who rely on home gardens as a key food source.

Brian Smith from the Persephone Brewing Company fills a water tank on the Sunshine Coast during a Stage 4 drought last year. Photo: Shayd Johnson / The Narwhal

The Sunshine Coast is not alone. In just the first two days of October, 33 heat records were broken across B.C. People in ‘Raincouver,’ which usually sees 115 millimetres of rain in October, barely saw a drop this month as wildfire smoke lingered over the mountains. 

But drought can’t only be understood in terms of lack of rain, Younes Alila, professor in the University of British Columbia’s department of forest resources management, told The Narwhal.

He said to address drought, people have to understand the complexity of hydrology behind them. The drought this year can be connected to the atmospheric river last fall, and wildfires and the two La Niña years in a row, he explained.

“There is no way to mitigate droughts in B.C. without a sound understanding of what controls droughts,” he said.

While this list is by no means exhaustive, these are some of the ways the Sunshine Coast and the province could have prepared for drought this year.

1. Action on B.C.’s Water Sustainability Act

The province introduced the Water Sustainability Act in 2016 to “ensure a sustainable supply of fresh, clean water that meets the needs of B.C. residents today and in the future.”

But Aaron Hill, executive director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said the water management tools available under the act “have not been used much since the act came into force … and they have not been used at all during this current crisis.”

The act allows B.C. to declare a temporary significant water shortage, to issue an order to protect critical water flow and prevent “irreversible harm to the aquatic ecosystem,” and to issue an order to prevent  diversion of water from a stream if the level has become so low it threatens a population of fish.

Chapman Creek on the Sunshine Coast, where the community declared a state of emergency due to Stage 4 drought. Photo: Shayd Johnson / The Narwhal

Water levels have certainly reached critical levels — thousands of salmon were found dead in Neekas Creek, shown in a video filmed in Heiltsuk territory. Watershed Watch also shared a video showing salmon-bearing Ford Creek in Chilliwack, B.C., to be extremely low, in stark juxtaposition to a golf course with sprinklers running behind it. 

“I don’t think I’m alone in finding it very troubling that during this crippling drought, where creeks are drying up and salmon are dying for lack of water, that none of these tools have been used,” Hill said in an email to The Narwhal.

Last year, Oliver Brandes, co-director of the University of Victoria’s POLIS project on ecological governance, similarly criticized the province for not fully utilizing the sustainability act.

“Inadequate flows for fish are only getting worse in water-stressed parts of the province, big industrial users are permitted to extract water at virtually no cost and boil water advisories are far too frequent. Communities are feeling water insecure,” he said.

In a written statement, the Ministry of Forests told The Narwhal its drought response focuses first on voluntary response and then regulations “as needed,” but it needs data to support such actions — and so it’s been increasing hydrometric stations and data collection. The ministry added that it can regulate flows for some streams through control structures (like dams), but not all streams have these structures in place.

The province has used the water sustainability act this year — but not in the way Hill described. In order to address the short-term water needs for people on the Sunshine Coast, the province used the legislation to temporarily reduce its environmental flow requirement for Chapman Creek. 

But more generally, the Ministry of Forests told The Narwhal that its staff has been “working with the licensees to ensure minimum environmental flows downstream of reservoirs are maintained.”

B.C.’s NDP government announced a watershed security fund two years ago, but it has not been implemented. In the spring, the province completed public engagement, with a draft watershed security strategy expected sometime this fall.

Hill did give the province credit for providing $57 million in funding for projects through the Healthy Watersheds Initiative and Indigenous Watersheds Initiative.

“Many of these were led by First Nations and have contributed to climate-proofing watersheds and improving local watershed governance to counteract the fecklessness of provincial and federal water managers,” he said.

Deborah Curran, executive director of the Environmental Law Centre, said B.C. needs to be take on holistic, ‘water-centric’ planning. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The province also intends to create water sustainability plans under the water sustainability act, but this is also slow-going. Years in, no plans have been created — but the work has begun in collaboration with Indigenous governments, Deborah Curran, executive director at the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre, said in an interview. These plans are intended to empower more regional watershed governance. Curran said they will be critical in creating long-term plans with collaboration between multiple levels of government.

Curran said more holistic and effective watershed management is needed, including ‘water-centric’ planning that looks 100 years ahead. Water levels are no longer a certainty, she said — and so plans have to be made for how to react, including who will be allowed to use water and who will not, so people feel prepared as a drought approaches.

2. Say goodbye to green lawns — for real

Speaking of water levels no longer being a certainty: introducing a ban on outdoor lawn watering in May every year is one way to prepare for unpredictable low water levels, Curran said. Some districts already have this rule in place, and the Sunshine Coast and other regions could join them.

Outdoor water use in summer is primarily used for ornamental flowers and lawns. It’s time to tweak the dominant culture and say goodbye, she said, noting it’s “low-hanging fruit” that could save up to 50 per cent of outdoor summer water use.

And speaking of cultural change…

3. Installing water metres and charging more for water use

Water is a human right, Curran said, but in the face of climate change, some people in society need a “reality check,” particularly heavy users.

She advocates for water users to pay for use, rather than a flat fee. She points out this could have tiered price ranges, keeping rates lower for families that use an average amount of water but higher for heavy users. 

On average, Canadians use 235 litres of water per day according to 2015 Statistics Canada figures.

Installing water metres would also help find leaks, which can save a lot of water.

The Chapman Creek water treatment plant is fed by Chapman Lake, which provides water for Sunshine Coast residents. Photo: Shayd Johnson / The Narwhal

The Sunshine Coast Regional District has 6,200 water metres and a population of almost 30,000 people. The district received approval from electors last year to borrow up to $7.25 million to undertake a water metering installation project.

In a March 2022 report, the regional district said its water metering program is nearing completion, and it may review water rates in 2023 to help the transition to volume-based billing.

But a challenge that the community faces is that some people are willing to pay two or three times more as long as they can continue watering their lawns and gardens, according to Remko Rosenboom, Sunshine Coast Regional District general manager, infrastructure services.

“We have to incentivize water conservation for that section of our residents,” he said.

In one part of the Sunshine Coast, metering is already in effect: water use dropped by almost 55 per cent in Gibsons after the town began tracking usage while simultaneously increasing the price of water.

The town is now able to supply Upper Gibsons with water, which it could not do before. The aquifer has higher levels of water than it did in 2012 because while more people are being serviced, they are using less water. However, it has raised water bills for users like farmers.

Gibsons also extended its asset management plan to include natural assets like wetlands, rather than only engineered assets like water pipe infrastructure — recognizing nature as integral infrastructure.

4. A more efficient provincial response to water licence applications

Former Sunshine Coast Regional District chair Lori Pratt told The Narwhal last year that the province has caused many delays in making decisions on applications, including the Church Road well site, which is supposed to add up to five million litres of water per day to the Chapman water system.

“Water expansion projects take a lot of time as you wait for provincial approvals and testing and feasibility studies on wells and aquifers,” she said at the time, pointing out how an expansion application for Chapman Lake, which provides the community with water, was denied. 

A spokesperson for the former Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development told The Narwhal last year there is ongoing consultation about the Church Road site with the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nation and the Town of Gibsons has also submitted applications for the same groundwater source.

The Church Road well was due to come online this year, but the regional district said the project has been further delayed due to global supply chain issues.

“Resourcing needs to be addressed because that is really impacting everything,” Rosenboom said. The ministry is “so under resourced,” he added. 

Hough Heritage Farm, where owner Raquel Kolof, Sunshine Coast Farmers Institute president, invested more than $20,000 in a well and thousands more in electrical and pumping equipment after struggling through previous water restrictions. Photo: Shayd Johnson / The Narwhal

While a current spokesperson for the Ministry of Forests didn’t respond directly to concerns about their capacity, in their statement to The Narwhal, they said the ministry’s role “is to review the applications and set the terms and conditions.”

“It is the water purveyor’s responsibility to ensure they manage their water supply adequately.”

The ministry said that outside of this year’s drought, it has expedited water works applications for the Sunshine Coast area.

Curran said water licencing in B.C. is somewhat antiquated with the idea “whoever got here first gets it.” She said there needs to be new arrangements prepared for drought, rather than operating under the assumption water will be “available for everyone all the time.”

More consideration for the spiritual importance of water and public health is needed, and community and cultural values are not reflected in the licencing system, she said.

5. Regional governments could take more proactive roles

Patrick Connelly, co-founder of Sunday Cider in Gibsons, B.C., told The Narwhal locals often talk about how previous regional district boards failed to adequately build reservoirs and water infrastructure.

“I think the [Sunshine Coast Regional District] is working on it and understands the level of crisis, but there’s not a ton of action that has been taken that actually solves the problem,” Connelly said during the drought last year.

There appears to be growing momentum. In addition to pursuing universal water metering, in 2021 the Sunshine Coast Regional District explored new watershed protection programs and the possibility of creating a new regional district service for watershed protection — a project that was largely funded by the Healthy Watersheds Initiative.

The regional district also offers rebates of up to $1,000 for water users who install rainwater harvesting systems.

The regional district published a business case for a watershed protection service in March 2022. It laid out a series of next steps including ongoing dialogue with the shíshálh Nation and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw, providing regular public updates on progress, and developing annual budget proposals based on planned water-related activities beginning with the 2023 budget. It also lists the intention to work more collaboratively with other governing authorities.

“The thing that’s missing is funding support for smaller local governments,” Rosenboom said, adding that many issues need to be weighed when making these decisions. 

“What is the financial sustainability of us wanting to move all these projects forward at the same time, because we don’t think the community might be able to absorb it financially,” he asked. 

6. More government collaboration to tackle B.C.’s water problems

Managing water means working across different jurisdictions of the province, First Nations, municipalities and private landowners. Right now, that’s not exactly happening.

Gibsons Mayor Bill Beamish told The Narwhal last year complaints about contamination are not passed onto the town from the province.

“The ministry comes in and investigates and files a report on a public website. There’s no sharing of that information with the town or the [regional district],” Beamish said.

“When you have an investigation of a contaminated site within our watershed, which affects our drinking water, we would like to be informed.”

Gibsons, which is working with the regional district and shishalh and Squamish nations, wants the province to support a regional watershed governance model.

7. Protecting B.C. old-growth forests and restoring logging roads

“Science is clear on this: we have lost our best natural protection – the forest cover — against flooding, landslides, and droughts,” Alila from the University of British Columbia said.

Forest canopy shade keeps snow for longer, which melts slower and infiltrates the soil and replenishes groundwater reservoirs, he explained. This feeds channels during the driest parts of the year.

Without the canopy snow melts faster and is quickly delivered “out to the ocean.”

Logging roads also cause runoff to be drained into ditches, which then run into streams. While this is done to prevent landslides — which logging also increases the likelihood of — it means runoff that normally saturates the soil is drained out of the watershed, Alila said.

An ancient cedar in the Dakota Bear Sanctuary, which the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation and B.C. government announced would no longer by auctioned by B.C. Timber Sales in 2021. Photo: Shayd Johnson / The Narwhal

He also said second-growth trees, planted after logging older trees, consume as much as 50 per cent more water than older forests.

“The ways we have been managing the forests for a century and counting, especially more so over the last several decades, do not portray a government or an industry that appreciates the role of forests in mitigating against natural calamities such as floods, landslides and droughts,” he said. 

He advocated for single tree selection, strip cutting, and smaller patch cutting rather than clear-cutting.

8. Not only looking at the B.C. weather forecast, but considering the context

Alila explained that with two back-to-back La Niña years, which are wetter and cooler in the fall and winter, that means snowpack melts later and quicker — once again, not giving snowmelt a chance to infiltrate the soil. Combined with the atmospheric river, which wiped out snow at high altitudes, this meant even more melted slow was a “lost opportunity” to recharge groundwater.

As well, hot summers cause wildfires, which leads to dry, burnt soil that is not very good at absorbing rain and snow. 

While there are many things happening at once, he said there is “no excuse for not being better prepared for this year’s drought.” All of the conditions that he laid out were known, he argued. As well, the impact of logging on soil has been demonstrated. 

Paul Nash from Ruby’s Run urban farm in Sechelt used a children’s pool with water in an act of improvised storage during the 2021 drought. Photo: Shayd Johnson / The Narwhal

“Didn’t we know that we lost so much snow from mid to high elevation during the November 2021 flood event? We do – there is data that demonstrates this. Don’t we know that global warming is causing more rain and less snow as time progresses? We do – this is very well-established science,” he said.

“It is clear government agencies at all levels are not using the rather well-established science to better manage water during the driest periods of the year.”

9. Bolder action on climate change and climate resiliency

We know, end with the easy one, right? But for Connelly of Sunday Cider, every local response to the drought has to be grounded in pursuing climate resiliency.

“This is climate change staring us in the face,” he told The Narwhal over the phone. He has options available to conserve water to keep his business running, but some are just “band-aid solutions” and larger action is needed, he said. He also said things are a little easier for him than some other businesses — cider uses less water than beer or wine and apple trees are quite hardy.

Patrick Connelly of Sunday Cider said he’s taking steps to conserve water for his business, but broader action is needed to address the impacts of climate change. Photo: Shayd Johnson / The Narwhal

The province has a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030. But for years, British Columbia’s emissions have been rising. In 2020, net emissions showed a dip at 63.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is 3 per cent lower from 2007 levels. But Jens Wieting, senior forest and climate campaigner for Sierra Club BC, suspects this is because many countries experienced temporary reductions in emissions due to the onset of COVID-19.

Sierra Club BC, represented by Ecojustice lawyers, was in the B.C. Supreme Court on Oct. 4 suing the B.C. government for failing to report on whether its climate plans will achieve key greenhouse gas emissions targets.

“In B.C., we have to stop acting with one hand to reduce emissions and with the other, increase emissions by allowing and subsidizing new fossil fuel development,” Wieting said, pointing to the LNG Canada terminal expected to be complete in 2025 as an example. He also wants to see more investment in habitat restoration and supporting Indigenous governance. 

For Connelly, climate resiliency is connected to building a “food sovereign” community, specifically subsidizing and supporting food farmers. He doesn’t want the Sunshine Coast to rely on shipments — he points to how catastrophic flooding in B.C. last year halted the delivery of basic necessities like food.

“Climate is coming for your booze now,” he joked wryly. 

“This is climate change, this is real, we need to do something. So let’s invest in solutions.” 

Updated on Oct. 25, 2022 at 10:42 a.m. PT: This story was updated to include information from a statement provided by the B.C. Ministry of Forests following publication. Updated on Oct. 28, 2022 at 2:23 p.m. PT: A previous version of this story stated that second-growth trees, planted after logging older trees, consume as much as 50 per cent more soil than older forests. In fact, it’s 50 per cent more water, not soil, and the story has been corrected to reflect this. Updated on Nov. 1, 2022 at 8:00 p.m. PT: A previous version of this story stated the Sunshine Coast Regional District had declared a local state of emergency for five of the past eight years due to drought. In fact, it experienced stage 4 drought for five of the past eight years, but only declared a local state of emergency in 2022.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This story is part of Going with the Flow, a series that dives into how restoring nature can help with B.C.’s flood problems — and what’s stopping us from doing it.

Adrienne Dickson rests one hand on a barbed wire fence she recently installed on her property in the small rural community of Topley, B.C. Behind her, across a sprawling hayfield, dozens of sheep graze in the shade of a forested hill and cattle are up in a pasture beyond. 

Two years after Dickson and her family bought the farm in 2013, there was a major flood and the Upper Bulkley River started changing. The rising waters eroded the banks at two bends, huge chunks of the property fell off into the river.

Like farmers in river valleys around the world, Dickson was facing a loss of land caused by flooding, a problem predicted to grow in pace and scale with climate change. She wanted to find a way to avoid losing more land.

“My dad says in the olden days they would have just took a Cat and cut the corner off,” she says, chuckling and explaining this would widen the river and allow sediment to get flushed downstream. 

These days, putting an excavator in the river is frowned upon, so she set out to see what options were available. She first met with a Ministry of Agriculture representative to discuss potential solutions, most of which came with a hefty price tag and would involve the use of riprap — engineered placement of rocks and sometimes concrete blocks that armour riverbanks against erosion.

Later, she serendipitously connected with some locals working to support the health of the watershed. One of those was Cindy Verbeek, northern B.C. coordinator for A Rocha Canada, a faith-based conservation organization. Verbeek and others had recently opened a hatchery in the nearby community of Houston to mitigate declining salmon populations.

“I grew up on this river and was just bullshitting with Cindy and I was talking about how the river was eating away,” Dickson says. “They were working to try to improve these sites, where they had a lot of sediment hitting the river, to try to improve the spawning grounds.”

The CN rail line cuts through the Upper Bulkley River system, severing sections and holding back the waters with riprap, engineered placement of rocks designed to reduce erosion.

Verbeek visited the farm and proposed addressing the erosion as part of a multi-year restoration project A Rocha was partnering on. Dickson jumped at the chance.

By planting fast-growing willow and cottonwood shoots into the eroded bank, they attempted to replicate what the ecosystem was like before the land was cleared for agriculture and development. The method — called low-tech riparian restoration — is a cost-effective alternative to mechanical flood mitigation projects and can be tailored to any impacted river ecosystem. The idea is that imitating natural systems, such as beaver dams and brushy banks, sets the stage for nature to take over and heal the damage that was done. 

“When I was a kid, I remember the fish in here, like tons of salmon,” Dickson says. “I caught my first rainbow when I was six years old in this river. I want to stop the erosion of my land — and it will help the fish.”

These days, few salmon make it this far upriver due to the combined impacts of climate change, forestry, mining, agriculture and the CN Rail line, which cuts through the watershed. 

“It just got ignored, for lack of a better word: ‘Oh, that’s the baby Bulkley, who cares? It’s just a little stream,’ ” she explains. “Actually, it had a lot to it and people didn’t realize. The fish supported a lot of things. And when they left, the birds left, the critters left.”

Willow shoots planted throughout a bank of the Upper Bulkley River will develop root networks that will hold the riverbank together, preventing further erosion during flood events.

‘Protection and restoration’ builds river resilience

What’s happening to Dickson’s farm and the associated impacts on the ecosystem are far from isolated. 

As the climate crisis intensifies, flooding, drought and unpredictable extreme weather events are becoming more commonplace. Wading through the muck of a flooded hayfield and losing a few feet of property to erosion isn’t just an inconvenience to farmers — these changes are indicative of bigger problems facing river ecosystems worldwide.

In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted loss of productivity in rivers can impact “climate regulation, water and food provisioning, pollination of crops, tourism and recreation.” In other words, rivers on their myriad paths through landscapes are an indispensable source of life. 

Globally, rivers have increased in temperature by up to 1 C per decade since 2014, according to the panel. Salmon especially depend on cooler waters. As Dickson says, without the fish, everything else disappears as well.

But there’s still hope. The panel also noted “there is evidence that protection and restoration of ecosystems builds resilience” which can help river systems to continue supporting and benefiting species — including humans.

‘Salmon is where we connect’

The Upper Bulkley floodplain is a perfect proving ground for restoration work. The area is home to “some of the most intense public and private land use in the Skeena watershed,” according to SkeenaWild Conservation Trust. 

This is a region where farming, forestry and mining play starring roles in the economy and the pickup truck reigns supreme. Not everyone here sees eye-to-eye on issues, whether that’s vaccines, religious beliefs, politics or pipelines.

Against this backdrop of divides, the riparian restoration project is a model for collaboration — it’s a partnership between conservation organizations, the Office of the Wet’suwet’en and environmental consultants, with buy-in from farmers and landowners. 

“The Wet’suwet’en supported the restoration project directing [the work] and were involved in the development of the project through collaboration within our networks,” David de Wit, natural resources manager with the Office of the Wet’suwet’en, told The Narwhal. 

Those networks include the Upper Bulkley roundtable, a working group that meets regularly to discuss watershed initiatives, and the Morice Watershed Monitoring Trust. The trust is a science-based collaborative group that includes de Wit, on behalf of the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, and representatives of the provincial government. The group folds in monitoring data collected by industry to support its goals: “water quality and quantity suitable to sustain the health and well-being of the Wet’suwet’en.” He says they collectively secured funding to cover two years of work related to the project.

The Upper Bulkley floodplain is one of the most impacted landscapes in the Skeena watershed. Restoration work that supports the health of the river and protects farmland is a collaboration between conservation organizations, the Office of the Wet’suwet’en and landowners.

Verbeek, who is a member of the roundtable, downplays her role in the project, saying she just helped facilitate connections with landowners with properties on the river. But it’s clear she gets people — she’s a good listener and knows the community. She says the lynchpin that brought people together is salmon.

“I’ve been working in Houston for many years and sort of struggled to find something that captured the imagination of the community — until I started with salmon,” she says. “It doesn’t matter who you are and what you do, whether you’re a logger or an office person or teacher, whatever, salmon is where we connect. And so as soon as you start talking about things that are going to benefit the salmon, people want to be a part of that.”

She says part of A Rocha’s mission is to help bridge divides. Some of those divides, she says, are between settlers and Indigenous people and also between rural and urban dwellers.

“It’s fun to see people of all walks of life being part of it,” she says, beaming. “Because, yeah, we have so many things to be divided over — let’s find the things that we’re not and work on those.”

Changing the cycle

Adam Wrench, a local environmental consultant, was contracted to help lead the work.

Wrench, who is friendly and approachable, says projects like this — when added up across the landscape — have the potential to impact the entire watershed. 

“Over time, it’s going to give a chance for the water table to come up and rehydrate the land. And then you’re just creating this massive sink of energy and water and nutrients, hopefully changing the cycle.”

The cycle he’s referring to is a negative feedback loop, where the river continually bursts its banks because of the constrictions placed on it from development. When it floods, it flushes sediment from the surrounding land into the water. As it recedes, that land is left compacted and stripped of nutrients. 

“You can see here, right, there’s the railway,” he says, pointing across the river as a train rumbles past. “On the other side of that railway are huge sections of river that are no longer in play.”

“On the other side of that railway are huge sections of river that are no longer in play.” Adam Wrench

He explains the natural floodplain once covered a much larger area of land. Now, all that’s left is Dickson’s farm.

“All that energy has nowhere to go,” he says. “What was happening here where they’re losing 15 to 20 feet a year, think about the amount of material that was going down the river from this one corner and it’s mind boggling. And then multiply that across the watershed.”

Natural cycles do see higher levels of sediment introduced into the water during spring flows and rivers are not static — they move and change. But this is different, he says, squinting in the sun as his phone chimes in his pocket. “It’s more where is that getting deposited? It’s covering spawning beds. It’s just totally destroying the hydrology.”

‘Money well spent’

On Dickson’s property, the meandering river lazily flows past a scrubby bank punctuated with what looks like the remains of a stand of trees, their tops lopped off haphazardly.

But these stumps didn’t grow in this spot — they were hammered into the crumbling riverbank to provide stability and, eventually, food for mycorrhizal fungi, underground fungal networks connecting plants to nutrients via their roots. Threaded throughout the site are young willow shoots that will hopefully establish themselves, growing up to not only protect the bank from flood-related erosion but also provide shade, keeping the river cool.

Tree stumps were hammered into the riverbank to prevent erosion while willow shoots establish root networks. Eventually the stumps will rot away, providing nutrients and supporting the growth of underground fungal networks.

Adam Wrench, an environmental consultant based in northern B.C., says the need for restoration of this type is “essentially unlimited” in the Upper Bulkley system. “Nearly every outside corner on the river where it hits a field looks like what we started with on Adrienne’s property.”

Cindy Verbeek works with A Rocha, a faith-based conservation organization. “It doesn’t matter who you are and what you do, whether you’re a logger or an office person or teacher, whatever, salmon is where we connect.”

“Yeah, they came in and I got no complaints about it,” Dickson says. “It was a big learning curve, because it was something new for them — this whole concept is a new idea. I said: got to start somewhere.”

Wrench says while low-tech restoration has been around for awhile, no one had tried it here. And what works in one watershed may not work in another. 

The method comes with a lot of benefits, not just for the ecosystem and the farmers. It also provides employment. Whanau Forestry, a Smithers-based silviculture company, provided most of the workers.

Whanau owner Chris Howard says the project helped extend the season for a lot of his workers, most of whom come from communities with high levels of poverty and unemployment.

“This is good, significant wages, and there are skills being learned and built,” he says. “I think it’s money well spent.”

Howard says the workers — mostly Indigenous youth — live on reserves like Witset, Fort Babine and Tachet. There was even a family from Tachet that came as a package deal.

“Dad was slinging a chainsaw, doing some of those tasks, mom and daughter were doing a lot of the pruning and bucking down of the willow and whatnot. Everybody had a task and they rotated off of it.” 

The first attempts to sink the posts into the bank were unsuccessful so they rigged up an attachment on an excavator and used it to pound the posts in as deep as possible. Wrench notes that without the help and expertise of the landowners, the project would have cost a lot more, and maybe not happen at all. Farmers have deep knowledge of their lands — necessary to keep afloat in the competitive agriculture industry — and they typically have a lot of equipment at hand, things like tractors, trucks and backhoes. 

“We could get it done in short order, because of the landowners,” Wrench says. “If we didn’t have them involved, this would never have happened.”

“These posts are providing the physical structure to stabilize the bank to allow all this live vegetation we planted to root,” he explains, pointing out the fresh green shoots amidst the darker brown woody debris. “Using the stingers — which is a piece of steel pipe we use on a fire pump blasting water — we can plant some of these live willow cuttings and cottonwood cuttings down six feet plus into the ground.” 

Once those cuttings are established, the root network spreads throughout the entire bank.

“The idea is, by the time these posts rot off and that structure disappears, there should be a fibrous root mat all the way through this corner to hopefully stabilize it.”

And the posts have another role to play. They also reintroduce nutrients that were stripped away after generations of farming, he explains. 

Wrench says they completed work at six sites, including two on Dickson’s farm.

“The need for restoration of this type in the Upper Bulkley is essentially unlimited,” he says. “Nearly every outside corner on the river where it hits a field looks like what we started with on Adrienne’s property.”

He adds the work being done here can also be done on other impacted rivers, but cautions each river is unique and comes with a different set of needs.

“They’re all different: different soils, different climate.” The trick, he says, is to get your hands dirty and see how it goes — the cost of low-tech restoration is a fraction of larger-scale mitigation work.

Cindy Verbeek shows a baby lamprey eel, scooped up from the riverbank.

Trying to find funding for people, not machines

While the restored banks held up well during high flows in the spring, no one is sure how successful the approach will be in the long term — and the funding to replicate the work on other properties in the watershed dried up this year. 

The project was originally funded through the Healthy Watersheds Initiative, a $27 million B.C. government program in partnership with the Real Estate Foundation of BC and Watersheds BC. This year, the province rolled out another $30 million but the riparian restoration project didn’t make the cut. 

“Direct funding agreements totalling $15 million were made between the province and a number of [Healthy Watersheds Initiative]-funded organizations that met provincial criteria,” a representative of the initiative told The Narwhal. “Watersheds BC and MakeWay are partnering under the Indigenous Watersheds Initiative to steward the other $15 million of this funding specifically to support Indigenous-led initiatives that are advancing watershed health.” 

Wrench says the low-tech approach needs regular monitoring and maintenance in some cases, unlike flood mitigation projects that deploy big machines and riprap, a common sight near rail lines, highways and pipelines.

“We need to inventory what’s been done and what’s actually worked 10 years up, because we have this idea this is gonna just pop into healthy riparian, but we don’t know that for sure,” he adds. “It’s the part that’s not as flashy because you’re not just pounding out the sites, but it’s the most critical piece.”

“Funders really love to fund stuff, but they don’t necessarily want to fund people,” Verbeek says. “We can have all the stuff we want but if you don’t have the people to use the stuff to do good things, then you’re not doing anything. That’s one of the biggest struggles for us, especially with our little project, is finding funding for people.”

Verbeek puts on hip waders, preparing to walk the river and check for spawning salmon and see if there are any changes to the habitat since she was last here. The ecosystem supports the likes of otters, beavers, lamprey eels, wild cats like bobcat and lynx, bears, moose and more. Even though it’s a river that still has a lot of healing to do, even with the train rushing past, it’s undeniably beautiful.

On the far bank, she scoops up the sand, looking for baby lamprey. Her eyes light up as she shares her dream.

“The Upper Bulkley River is the most negatively impacted river in the Skeena watershed because of human activity. And I just think: wouldn’t it be cool if in the next 100 years, this would be the most positively impacted watershed in the Skeena system because of human activity?”

Going with the Flow is made possible with support from the Real Estate Foundation of BC, which administers the Healthy Watersheds Initiative, and the BC Freshwater Legacy Initiative, a project of the MakeWay Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, no foundation or outside organization has editorial input into our stories.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This story is part of Going with the Flow, a series that dives into how restoring nature can help with B.C.’s flood problems — and what’s stopping us from doing it.

Examine the narrow patches of grass and trees lining a residential street in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood and you’re sure to find signs of life.

There may be spiders, such as the cross orbweaver with its orange body and fuzzy head, a couple different types of lichen, a jewelled amanita mushroom with a light yellow cap or fuzzy-horned bumble bees. Snails, stinkbugs and slugs. And, in the broader area, 22 species of birds: a Cooper’s hawk, an eagle, crows, starlings and pigeons.

A group of citizen scientists has been recording sightings of each of these plants, insects and birds along a section of St. George Street over the last several months — part of a hyperlocal biodiversity monitoring effort. 

Next year, the city will replace the pavement along four blocks on the east side of the street, developing a “rainway” with a series of gardens, streambeds and small dams. These will capture and slow some of the rainfall that rushes downhill over impervious pavement. 

Rain falls more than 160 days a year in Vancouver. When the rainway is complete, rather than flowing into catch basins and the network of underground pipes that usually carry rainwater runoff to the sewage treatment plant — or too often straight into False Creek — much of that water will percolate into the ground through the gardens or rocky streambeds instead. 

“My hope is that it gets replicated in different locations across the city, but other cities as well,” Rita Wong, a long-time community champion of the project, said in an interview. 

The rainway will help capture and absorb rain to prevent street flooding, relieve pressure on the city’s wastewater infrastructure and help clean contaminants from the water. Illustration: Matthew Thompson / City of Vancouver

Not everyone who lives nearby is as supportive of the project, however. Some are concerned about the loss of parking as well as potential impacts on emergency vehicles, garbage pick up and deliveries of new car-free areas.

The rainway isn’t the first green rainwater infrastructure project the City of Vancouver has undertaken, but it will be among the largest. The project, including street reconstruction, the green rainwater infrastructure and new seating areas, is currently expected to cost between $5 million and $6 million, according to the city. 

City staff have billed the project as a showcase for the benefits of nature-based solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises, offering a model that could be replicated elsewhere. It’s also a chance to carve a bigger space for nature within the urban maze of asphalt and concrete. 

“My hope for the rainway is that we would someday hear frogs again, that we would have conditions that are more conducive for biodiversity,” said Wong, a poet and professor at Emily Carr University.

Vancouver expected to see more intense storms due to climate change

By 2050, Vancouver is expected to see more rain during the fall, winter, and spring months due to human-caused climate change. Major storms could see 63 per cent more rainfall across the city.

During heavy rainfall, some of the water runoff from city streets — and any pollutants it picks up — flows directly from the city’s stormwater pipes into local waterways bodies. 

In some cases, it’s not just rainwater rushing into False Creek or Burrard Inlet — it’s sewage too. The city still has some combined sewers — pipes that carry both sewage from homes and businesses as well as rainwater runoff from city streets. During heavy rains, these combined sewers overflow into nearby waterways to protect the sewage treatment plants from being flooded. 

“Combined sewer overflows happen really, really regularly,” Sylvie Spraakman, a senior engineer in the City of Vancouver’s green infrastructure branch, said.

In 2020 alone, over 44 million cubic metres of untreated sewage and rainwater runoff overflowed into waterways in the Metro Vancouver area, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada data.

Vancouver is working to separate combined sewers. But even in areas that already have fully separated sewers, pollution from untreated rainwater runoff still flows into waters that are home to crabs and fish and starfish, not to mention the people who kayak or paddle board in False Creek and swim at English Bay. Photo: AlbertArt / Shutterstock

With the threat of such deluges looming in the future, the City of Vancouver developed its rain city strategy, building on the city’s climate change adaptation strategy developed in 2012. The strategy, released in 2019, aims to improve local water quality, make the city more resilient to climate change and make Vancouver a more liveable city by improving urban ecosystems.

In line with the rain city strategy, green rainwater infrastructure, such as the new rainway, incorporates both nature and engineering to better manage water: to slow its movement and filter it before it reaches local waterways.

“In terms of climate change, we really need to be able to slow down the water to absorb it, to make friends with it, rather than trying to just divert it out of here quickly,” Wong said.

That’s what the rainway aims to do.

As rain falls on the gardens, rather than rolling away, it will linger and sink into the soils. During the heaviest storms, when water starts to fill up the constructed stream bed, small dams will help slow it down, giving the ground a chance to absorb it. Underground infrastructure especially in the steep sections of the street will offer added water storage until it can be absorbed into the ground.

“Before we paved our roads, we would have had a lot more soft surfaces around that were porous and could absorb that rainwater,” Spraakman said. “So really, we’re just going back and adding in those porous surfaces that we took away a little while ago.”

“It’s really a marvel of engineering and nature blended together that makes this work,” Julie McManus, a planner in the city’s green infrastructure branch, added.

The rainway has been designed to absorb about 90 per cent of the rain that’s likely to run through it each year.

At the same time, the plants in the rainway will help filter pollutants from the water that flows through it, so it’s cleaner when it does eventually seep into local waterways.

Mount Pleasant rainway project more than 10 years in the making

The project was initially conceived of and pushed forward by a group of community volunteers as a nod to a long-buried stream that once flowed through the area. 

Wait for a quiet moment, turn your ear towards the manhole covers along St. George Street near East 6th or East 5th avenues and you can still hear water flowing underground even when the street is dry, Wong said.

“When it’s raining, you can totally see it above ground, it’s just rushing down off the cement really fast,” she said.

The rainway has been more than a decade in the making. A street party in 2010 and parade in 2011 offered community members a chance to learn about the lost stream, according to a community website about the project. There were community design workshops in 2011 and 2012, and in 2013 the rainway was officially adopted into the Mount Pleasant community plan. Six years later, Vancouver’s rain city strategy was approved, and the year after that the city committed funds for rainway planning.

St. George Street will be transformed next year next year, when the city replaces the pavement on the east side of the street, developing a “rainway” with a series of gardens, streambeds and small dams. Part of the street will also be closed to cars creating a new bike route through the neighbourhood. Photo: City of Vancouver

This Sunset Park green rainwater infrastructure project gives an indication of how the new St. George Street rainway could work when it rains. Photo: City of Vancouver

The city process itself was guided by a public advisory committee and involved a series of public engagements on the vision and eventually design concepts for the rainway. 

According to the city, 157 people responded to a survey about four design concept options. The majority of respondents supported having car-free sections along the street as well as the overall “flow” design for the rainway. Though some nearby residents preferred the option that would retain the most parking. 

On a sunny afternoon in September, The Narwhal spoke to a handful of residents who live along St. George Street. Some were supportive of the project, at least in part, with one neighbour saying the rainway could encourage people to rethink their driving habits and another citing its benefits for drainage. Others raised concerns about the loss of street parking and the prospect of elderly visitors or residents having to walk further to their homes. Residents have also questioned the impact on emergency vehicle access to the street and potential challenges for garbage pick up and home deliveries.

According to the city’s engagement report, the city undertook a parking study in the summer of 2021 and found fewer cars parked along St. George Street than adjoining streets, informing their decision. 

Currently, parking in the area is largely unregulated, meaning anyone, not just residents with parking permits, can park on the street. Once the rainway is built, just one side of one block along the four-block rainway will be available for parking. The city said it would explore requiring parking permits if that’s what residents want. 

As for concerns about emergency vehicle access or impacts to garbage pick up, the city’s engagement report said it worked with Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services to ensure emergency vehicles would still have “immediate access” to car free areas. The report said curbs will be designed to accommodate turning garbage trucks and emergency vehicles and delivery drivers will be able to temporarily park on side streets.

Wong said parking concerns had been an obstacle but “other things are important like clean air, a liveable city, cooling the planet.”

Urban green spaces can offer bees refuge from climate change, pesticide use

Alongside absorbing rainfall, the rainway gardens could offer enhanced habitat for diverse plants and animals.

“People often think urban areas are these degraded spaces and just a small patch of habitat versus a large national park,” said Sheila Colla, an ecologist and York University research chair in interdisciplinary conservation science.

In reality, there is a lot of biodiversity in urban spaces. 

For wild bees and other pollinators, in particular, urban green spaces offer much needed refuge from threats such as climate change or pesticides. 

There tends to be less pesticide use in cities than in agricultural areas, Colla said. And, municipalities tend to mitigate some of the impacts of climate change, such as more frequent drought and heatwaves. Rather than being left to shrivel and wilt, municipal staff will water plants during dry periods, she explained, ensuring that habitat remains available to the species that rely on it. 

In Canada, about a quarter of wild bumblebees alone are at-risk of extinction, making such urban refuges vital to their conservation, Colla added.

Projects like the new rainway in Vancouver can help create habitat to support the diversity of species found in urban areas, according to Colla. And “the more species you have in a system, the more resilient that system is to environmental stressors,” she said.

Gardens filled will hardy native plants are meant to help support biodiversity and clean contaminants from the rainwater runoff. Illustration: Matthew Thompson / City of Vancouver

As much as possible, the city is planning to use native plants in the rainway. They’ll have to be hardy to filter any pollutants rainwater may pick up from the street, such as hydrocarbons, bacteria or metals. The plan is these new gardens will offer better food and habitat for the wildlife already living along the roadside and others that may be drawn to the area. 

“That’s part of the reason why we embarked on these bio blitzes to get an idea of what’s already here,” McManus said.

The city has already hosted three ‘bio blitzes’ — community events to identify as many species as possible in a limited window of time. The final pre-construction bio blitz is planned for Oct. 1.

Eventually, the St. George Street rainway could one day extend another several blocks, McManus said.

Wong said she is a bit nervous about the project. She doesn’t want to see the rainway become a gentrification project that causes any further increases to the cost of living in a city where housing prices are already a major burden.

But she’s excited too, to “see more water being held in the land.”

“There’s been a lot of damage that’s been done in the city, and a lot of healing that still needs to happen in terms of our relationship with the water,” she said.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This story is part of Going with the Flow, a series that dives into how restoring nature can help with B.C.’s flood problems — and what’s stopping us from doing it.

Just two generations ago, the Squamish estuary — called Skwelwil’em in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim (the Squamish language) — remained somewhat peaceful in the face of great change. 

The settler village of Squamish was built and growing in the estuary, on the territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation). A railroad was built to Vancouver, and old-growth logging was at its height. Still, amid these colonial disruptions, the estuary was home to salmon, a place for Sḵwx̱wú7mesh to fish and be close to the water of Átl’ḵa7tsem (Howe Sound).

But boundless development and resource extraction continued and the town chipped away at the estuary.

In an example of bulldozing over Indigenous Rights in the name of industry — in the most literal sense — the estuary was dredged in the 1970s by BC Rail for a proposed coal port project without any consultation with the Squamish Nation. A five-kilometre-long spit was built that blocked water and dried up part of the estuary. 

The federal government wound up rejecting the proposal — so for about 30 years a massive pile of dredged soil remained abandoned right on top of Skwelwíl̓em. A portion of the estuary, once filled with lush grasses and calm water, was left barren and brown for decades and salmon numbers began to decrease.

Now, the Squamish Nation is co-leading an effort to restore the estuary with the Squamish River Watershed Society and Fisheries and Oceans Canada in a coalition called Restore the Shore, which seeks to “save this vital ecosystem and right historical wrongs.”

This year, the group took on its biggest task yet: removing a fifth of the spit that has blocked juvenile salmon exiting the river from accessing the estuary. The project has been years in the making and has brought together at-times disparate community interests. 

Salmon in Skwelwil’em also provide food for other animals like coyotes. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Removing the spit “opens the lungs of the river,” Sxwíxwtn (pronounced S—WAY-wah-tin), whose English name is Wilson Williams, told The Narwhal from his office where he serves as a councillor and spokesperson for the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw.

“It brings back the natural being of it.”

Sxwíxwtn’s name comes from the Squamish village Yekw’ápsem, which means “located in the Squamish Valley along the Squamish River,” he said. His uncle Sxwíxwtn was the last person to carry this name during the 1850s, until he received it in 2019.

Sxwíxwtn said the Squamish Nation’s stories and legends connect to the waterways, animals and mountains. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

“Names are verb-based, not noun-based,” he explains. “Squamish names are directly tied to our land. They describe the territory, what happens there.”

“When one receives an ancestral name they continue to learn, and protect the sacred nature of the name — but more importantly, protect who we are as Squamish Peoples and our culture, traditions, legends and language.”

How Squamish’s community broke down barriers to bring back salmon

The District of Squamish is among the fastest growing communities in B.C., with the population doubling since the early ’90s. All of those extra people living around the estuary has meant navigating multiple competing interests, balancing the desires of newcomers with the rights of the First People and the need to save salmon from extinction while bringing Skwelwil’em back to life. 

There’s the Squamish Nation, which has inherent rights to the estuary and intrinsic relationship with salmon. Then there’s the Restore the Shore coalition, which has a goal of improving salmon health. Then you’ve got city businesses, like Squamish terminals, which transports cargo, and is concerned about changes in sedimentation spit removal might bring about. And then there are the residents who comprise that booming population, many of whom are drawn here for the outdoor recreation opportunities. While the spit was disastrous for salmon, it was a boon for kiteboarders, providing an exceptional launch point.

After years of planning, engaging with the public and getting permits, Restore the Shore finally broke open the barrier this year. Between January and April, they dismantled 300 metres of the spit. The coalition, funded by the Coastal Restoration Fund, Pacific Salmon Foundation, Habitat Conservation Trust Fund and the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program, is currently monitoring for environmental impacts, with plans to remove another 550 metres in October. 

The Squamish spit juts out between the Squamish River on the right and the estuary on the left, blocking juvenile salmon from accessing the estuary as a space to rest, grow and feed. The spit has been partially dismantled since this photo was taken. Photo: Squamish River Watershed Society

The hope is that easier access to safe waters will enhance juvenile salmon’s health and well-being.

Because of the spit, salmon have been “shot out into the ocean before they’re ready,” Patricia Heintzman, spokesperson for the Squamish River Watershed Society, told The Narwhal. 

“What they need to do is spend three or four months in the estuary where they saltify, they get strong, their scales get more resilient and there’s a buffet of nutritional things for them.” 

After decades of restoration, the estuary is again teeming with life including elk, great blue heron and coyotes. But salmon numbers are still in decline. Photos: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Like many fish populations in B.C., salmon populations in the Squamish River have declined in recent years, especially Chinúkw (Chinook salmon). According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (previously the Department of Fisheries and Oceans), between 1962 and 1972 more than 17,000 Chinook salmon returned to the Squamish River each year on average. By the 1980s, they counted below 500 Chinook. After decades of restoration the watershed society said annual returns have increased to 5,000 Chinook. Wilson said fishermen in the estuary tell him they still don’t see many fish. 

Restoration work began back in 1999, with the Squamish Nation partnering with the Squamish River Watershed Society and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to restore the estuary, in the beginnings of the Restore the Shore initiative. 

Skwelwil’em before it underwent restoration led by the Restore the Shore Coalition. Photo: Squamish River Watershed Society

The estuary today: a place beloved for recreation, culture and wildlife viewing. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

First, they had to tackle the dredge pile, restoring about 15 hectares of estuary that had been buried — equivalent to about 28 football fields. They restored and constructed tidal channels, replanted vegetation like eelgrass, and constructed pedestrian bridges. In 2007, the estuary was designated as Skwelwil’em Squamish Estuary Wildlife Management Area under the Provincial Wildlife Act. Then, the biggest hurdle: removing at least a portion of the spit. 

Salmon are top of mind in all this work — but since Chinook have a four-year life cycle, the community will have to wait that long to truly see what impact the spit removal had on this generation.

Squamish estuary provides over $12 million in ecosystem services every year: report

Estuaries are calm bodies of water where the freshwater of a river flows into a body of saltwater, and are highly productive ecosystems known for their biodiversity. Skwelwil’em supports steelhead trout, herring and five species of sts’u’kwi7, or salmon. Those salmon are sustenance for other animals in the estuary, like eagles and bears, as well as southern resident killer whales and humpbacks.

But estuaries aren’t just good for animals. The Squamish Nation partially funded a 2021 study that found the estuary provides $12.6 million every year in ecosystem goods and services, such as water filtration and flood mitigation. The report emphasized the findings were not exhaustive and didn’t quantify cultural value, since there is no adequate way to put a monetary value on culture.

The study was commissioned by the Squamish River Watershed Society and researched by an independent contractor, Elise Pullar. It builds off of a 2015 study commissioned by the David Suzuki Foundation, which concluded the Howe Sound watersheds provide somewhere between $800 million and $4.7 billion in ecosystem services.

“[The report] is really meant to be a conversation starter,” opposed to providing definitive answers, Heintzman said. 

She said she sees the limitations and even the dangers in quantifying nature in a “materialistic” way. But if no attempt at valuation is made, then land can be essentially viewed as “worthless” economically, she argued.

“If we don’t start reevaluating or understanding the value of [nature] in its completeness, then we’re in danger of compromising the future,” she said.

Sxwíxwtn wants to ensure Chinook and other salmon in Squamish territory are healthy for future generations. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

To Sxwíxwtn, the report furthers what “the Squamish people have always known.”

“The land and water must be protected and respected. We must work in step with our lands and waters,” he said. 

“If we don’t take care of the natural world, it won’t take care of us.”

The cultural component is important as Squamish people reclaim their connection to that part of the territory, councillor Joyce Williams wrote in an opinion piece in 2021.

“As our lands heal and are revitalized, so is our culture and connection to it,” she wrote. “This connection will continue to strengthen once again with continued and improved recognition of the importance of estuaries for the community as a whole.”

From disagreement to understanding

Sxwíxwtn said the work to remove the spit has been a “great initiative” and there has been “mutual respect” between all the partners, in a stark contrast to how the spit was built without any consultation with the Squamish Nation. 

“If proper consultation had occurred … there would have been a stronger vision in regards to protecting the natural habitat and resources. In this case, our salmon life cycles,” Sxwíxwtn said.

“They need to hear our voice.”

But this work has also come with challenges. For windsport enthusiasts, the Squamish Spit was a world-class launching point and some felt this wasn’t being adequately considered in the removal process. A petition from 2020 signed by nearly 3,000 people described the spit as a premiere kiteboarding location and a place where professional athletes and Olympians train. Restore the Shore proposed leaving an island at the end of the spit to be used as a launch point, but the windsports society pushed for some kind of road access to be built.When Restore the Shore received approval to remove the spit in January, leaving an island for kiteboarders to use, the president of the windsports society, Sean Millington, told The Narwhal their membership was “not happy” because they were still unsure if their access to the water would be inhibited.But the Squamish Windsports Society has ultimately arrived at a place where they support the Nation and its efforts to bring back salmon, and want to move ahead in partnership.

Squamish Windsports Society president Sean Millington walks through Spit Island. While the society initially had concerns about accessing the water, he said they “fully back” the Squamish Nation. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

For the first time this summer, kiteboarders tried a new system of boating to what they’re calling Spit Island. Its members pitched in to buy a boat for the society. After a summer of accessing Spit Island by boat, Millington said members have been pleasantly surprised to see it’s not as difficult to get to the island as expected. He said people were more worried when it was all “theoretical,” but are reassured now that they see an “actual solution in place.”

“The feedback that I’m getting from most people when I talk to them is, ‘This actually went pretty well. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be,’ ” he said. “The feedback has been mostly positive.”

A five-time Canadian Football League all-star, and two-time Grey Cup Champion, Millington is someone whose life has been devoted to athletics. He has been windsurfing for 20 years, and started kiteboarding in 2017. He became the society’s president in January.

Millington emphasized the society supports the Squamish Nation, and that they signed a memorandum of understanding. He said he knows the future of the estuary isn’t the windsports society’s decision.

“We do believe in the cooperative and understanding relationship that we’ve managed to arrive at, even if there have been times when our goals and their goals weren’t necessarily lined up,” he explained. 

A kite surfer does a trick while surfing on Howe Sound off the shore of Squamish, B.C. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Millington said he learned from the challenge of bringing together “a whole bunch of diverse opinions.”

“It’s really important, in that process, to listen to what everyone is saying and do your best to understand where each of the parties is coming from.” 

Despite being situated on Howe Sound, the city residents have very limited access to the water; the shore is mostly dominated by industry. Millington hopes there is still a chance a land bridge will be built to the island to make access easier — but he’d only want to see a land bridge with the approval of the Squamish Nation. 

“We fully back the Nation,” he said. 

To Edith Tobe, executive director of the Squamish River Watershed Society, collaboration is the story, she argued emphatically. 

Tobe said overcoming challenges and disagreements required patience and building trust. 

“It’s been very interesting to me, because it is a community where there are a lot of disparate interests,” she said. “And there’s room for everybody.”

The Squamish River Windsports Society purchased the boat on the left to access Spit Island. President Sean Millington said members came to see the change wasn’t as disruptive as they had worried. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Sxwíxwtn said the Nation has worked closely with the windsports society and other stakeholders. Open dialogue will remain important as the coalition continues working to restore the estuary, he added.

“I’m a firm believer in building a strong relationship, first and foremost, as a foundation,” he said. “That will bring us to that mutual understanding.”

Sxwíxwtn said this is an important moment for the Nation to be making decisions on their own territory and bring knowledge to the table.

“We’re in the room now to share what we can respectfully, and share the stories. We have strong legends and they all connect to the waterways, the mountains, the animals. And they always come back to survival, perseverance and strength.”

‘We can’t engineer our way out of problems’

The Squamish River naturally oscillates back and forth, but that movement was halted by the spit, and the river stopped depositing as much sediment to the estuary.

Tidal marshes naturally accumulate sediment and vegetation, which can slow down water, decrease wave height and attenuate wave energy, biologist Eric Balke, coordinator of the south coast conservation land management program with Ducks Unlimited, told The Narwhal. If you cut off the estuary from its sediment source, you have “inhibited the capacity” of that ecosystem, he said. In the face of sea level rise, that means tidal marshes could disappear.

“If we lose a lot of these tidal ecosystems that protect us from sea level rise, then that potentially will make us even more vulnerable to flooding,” he said. 

The once sprawling Skwelwil’em seen on the left. In the third photo, one can see the long straight line of the Squamish spit. Not only does the spit block salmon, it blocks sediment. Without natural sediment deposit, an estuary’s ability to attenuate waves and mitigate floods is inhibited. Photo: provided by the Squamish River Watershed Society

Balke believes that more research is needed, but theoretically, allowing more water and sediment flow to the estuary should support its resilience.

“The realignment of the spit may, over the long term, actually help protect the community from sea level rise,” he said.

Heintzman hopes restoring the estuary will encourage people to consider nature-based climate solutions, which means empowering the natural processes of nature to mitigate the impacts of climate change. For example, the estuary can act as a “big sponge” and absorb water to protect the coastline from storm surge, coastal flooding and sea level rise, she said. 

Wetlands are hubs for biodiversity, along with offering natural climate solutions like carbon sequestration, flood mitigation and water filtration. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Nature-based climate solutions include protecting and enhancing forests, wetlands and grasslands that sequester a lot of carbon.

“We can’t engineer our way out of problems,” she said. “[Engineered solutions] are very, very expensive and they don’t fulfill the very complex and multifaceted role that nature does.”

An estuary can provide the same flood protection as a dike while also providing food, habitat, tourism and carbon sequestration while filtering air and water, she said.

“It provides all this value added,” she said.

The report commissioned by the Squamish River Watershed Society recommends that the district of Squamish develop a natural asset management framework and prioritize nature-based solutions over engineered solutions to climate risks. It also suggests the district establish the estuary as a carbon sink on the carbon market.

In an emailed statement, the district’s mayor Karen Elliott said work is underway to develop a natural asset management strategy and the district already prioritizes restoring natural assets over engineered assets “where possible.” 

As for pursuing the possibility of earning carbon credits from the estuary, Elliott only said the district is paying attention to the carbon credit market and “watching closely.” She said no existing methodologies would support claiming carbon credits for conserving the estuary.

“Any credits would be a result of re-establishing wetland or salt marsh areas, or conserving areas that are at risk of development,” she said.

A view of Skwelwil’em in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh territory. Beyond its economic value or ecosystem services, Sxwíxwtn said culture and relationships are at the centre of the estuary’s success story. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Elliott emphasized the difficult nature of putting monetary value on nature and said the district has not verified the methodologies used in the watershed society’s report to assign specific dollar values to the estuary. 

“We do, however, recognize the importance of recognizing and protecting our natural assets,” she added.

For Sxwíxwtn, it comes back to the culture and relationships that place can foster. When he was a young child, his father regularly brought him down to the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Staḵw (Squamish River) to fish. That peaceful time by the river with his father is a time he cherishes. Now that his father is older, he provides fish to his father, just like his father did for him when he was a child. He wants to ensure Chinook and other salmon across the territory are healthy for future generations.

“Our ancestors and our past leadership set us up for a strong future,” Sxwíxwtn said. “Our people are always at the forefront.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This story is part of Going with the Flow, a series that dives into how restoring nature can help with B.C.’s flood problems — and what’s stopping us from doing it.

For many British Columbians the memories of November 2021 are still fresh. The torrential rains. The rushing rivers. The water that surged through flood defences. 

Certain moments stand out. The Fraser Valley farmers who used Sea-Doos and boats to lead dairy cows to safety through chest-high waters. The thousands of people ordered out of Merritt when the flood overtook the city’s sewage treatment plant. And the hundreds of motorists who found themselves trapped between landslides as soggy hillsides gave way. 

By the time the water receded, it was the costliest natural disaster in B.C. history. But it wasn’t entirely natural. A study by 14 scientists determined that human-caused climate change made the extreme rains significantly more likely. The impact, meanwhile, was made worse by a series of decisions dating back centuries that saw floodplains transformed into cities and farmland.

Those decisions — to build in floodplains and restrict the mighty Fraser River through extensive diking — also had dire consequences for salmon. Each new barrier cut off the species’ access to vital spawning and rearing habitat. As B.C. works to rebuild, First Nations leaders, environmental advocates and experts say this is a chance to do things differently — better — to make choices that are good for people, as well as for salmon and ecosystems as a whole. 

But they fear funding restrictions and an appetite for immediate action could leave B.C. on the same broken course it’s been on for decades, adding further strain to already suffering salmon populations.

Salmon on the brink in part due to diking of Fraser River 

B.C. has taken a “big engineering” approach to reducing flood risk for the last six or seven decades, Tamsin Lyle, the principle of Ebbwater Consulting and a flood management expert, told The Narwhal. The idea was to separate water from the buildings people lived, worked and played in using dikes, she explained.

After a destructive flood in 1948, the federal government sent engineers from Ontario out west. Their mandate, Lyle said, was “to restore the public faith in the diking system.” That’s when B.C.’s commitment to dikes was really “cemented” in place, she said. 

B.C. now relies on more than 1,100 kilometres of dikes — many poorly maintained — as well as a series of flood gates and pump stations to protect low-lying communities from high water. Experts have warned for years that the province’s flood defences are deficient.

At the same time, the diking system has had unintended consequences. Today, salmon have access to just 15 per cent of the estimated floodplain habitat available historically in the Lower Fraser, according to a study published in the journal Ecosphere in July 2021. More than 1,200 barriers also block access to about 64 per cent of the stream length that salmon could, at one time, use for spawning and rearing, the researchers found.

Dikes and flood control infrastructure have cut salmon, such as these chum fry, off from valuable rearing habitat along the Fraser River. Photo: Eiko Jones / Watershed Watch Salmon Society

“Historically, every one of those old creeks and tributary rivers coming into the Fraser would have had local runs of sockeye, or Chinook or Chum,” said Tyrone McNeil, chair of the Emergency Planning Secretariat, which supports Coast Salish First Nations on the mainland to develop a coordinated flood mitigation strategy.

For young salmon, access to good floodplain habitat, where they can feed and grow, can make a crucial difference in their ability to survive as they head out to sea. 

“This extraordinary loss of floodplain rearing habitat is likely having a significant impact,” Tara Martin, a professor of conservation decision science at the University of British Columbia, wrote in an email to The Narwhal. She noted that all of the coho and Chinook salmon populations that have been assessed in the Lower Fraser are considered threatened.

“If we continue to erode the last remaining portions of floodplain and stream habitat in the Lower Fraser in an effort to adapt to increased flood risk, we will lose wild salmon in the Fraser,” Martin warned.

A generational opportunity to ‘build back better’

In the wake of last year’s damaging floods, there is a growing chorus calling for a major rethink of the way B.C. manages flood risk.

In July, a coalition of scientists, engineers, First Nations and local government representatives, environmental advocates and many others came together to discuss regional flood recovery and the need to “build back better,” as the Agassiz-Harrison Observer reported at the time. This week, local government leaders, who are meeting in Whistler, B.C., at the annual Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention, will consider several flood-related issues. Among them is a resolution put forward by the City of Port Moody, calling for “flood recovery that creates safe communities and healthy, resilient ecosystems.”

A map showing the extend of historical salmon habitat in the lower Fraser River, based on survey work conducted in 1859 to 1890. Map: Finn et al. / Ecosphere

But funding remains a major stumbling block. A lot of the money the province and federal government allocated to immediate flood recovery is meant to help communities build back flood infrastructure that was lost or damaged the way it was before the flood, but not to improve it, said Lina Azeez, the habitat program manager for the conservation group Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

McNeil called the policy “archaic” and “nonsensical.”

“If you’ve got a four-foot culvert that’s washed out from the rain event, all you can do is put that four-foot culvert back in, you can’t put in a five-foot culvert or a six-foot culvert unless you pay for it out of your pocket,” he said.

In July, the federal government said it would provide B.C. with $870 million to support recovery from the major flooding and landslides last winter through a disaster financial assistance arrangement. Annie Cullinan, a spokesperson for federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair, told The Narwhal in a statement that additional funding would be announced “in due course.”

That funding is delivered through the provincial government, which decides where to allocate the money and what it can be used for, Cullinan said. 

“We recognize that there are ways this program can be improved to better serve Canadians and reduce the risks they experience by building greater resiliency,” she said. Earlier this year an advisory panel was asked for recommendations to improve disaster relief financing, Cullinan noted. The government expects their report by the end of the year.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Emergency Management BC said the province will be making changes to the disaster financial assistance program as it modernizes its emergency management legislation. Under the current disaster financial assistance program flood protection structures must be upgraded if the previous structures did not meet existing standards, the statement said. Communities looking to “build back better” should reach out to the department’s community recovery team for more information about whether the province can provide support, it said.

The spokesperson also noted the province is working to develop a provincial flood strategy, which is set for release next year, as well as a flood resilience plan to be published in 2025. Alongside investments in floodplain mapping, the province has also invested $30 million this year to restore watersheds to reduce the impacts of flooding, building on $27 million invested last year, the statement noted. In August, a new green infrastructure adaptation, resilience and disaster mitigation program was announced with $81.1 million in funding for flood mitigation and other projects to adapt to climate change.

Those are, however, comparatively small investments relative to the hundreds of millions of dollars available now in federal disaster assistance funding to rebuild damaged flood control infrastructure.

Ultimately, McNeil said new funding mechanisms and a coordinated, regional approach to flood management are needed. The Emergency Planning Secretariat has created a regional action plan for the 31 mainland Coast Salish First Nations, McNeil said. The plan isn’t public just yet but McNeil said there will be opportunities for local and regional governments to get on board. 

“Ideally, we’d have a local plan, a local strategy that’s endorsed by First Nations and local governments,” he said.

Giving Fraser River room to ‘breathe’ would restore salmon habitat, lower flood risk

For juvenile salmon, floodplains are critically important habitat. They offer access to nutritious food, places to hide from predators and respite from fast-moving rivers like the Fraser during flooding from heavy rains or snow melt. Safe in the little channels of slow-moving water, young salmon have a chance to “grow bigger and stronger” before continuing their migration out to sea, Azeez said. “If they don’t have access to these habitats, unfortunately, they get flushed out into the ocean much quicker,” she said, decreasing their chance of survival.

For juvenile salmon, floodplains and small streams offer places to hide from predators, as well as ample food to help them grow strong before they migrate out to sea. Photo: Gillian Flaccus / Associated Press

Diking has already severely restricted the Fraser River’s ability to expand during the spring when melting snow and rain cause the river to swell. 

“When we allow the river to breathe during freshet it creates or recreates habitat that’s important to all of us,” McNeil said. It also lessens the risk to homes, farmland and other infrastructure downstream.

“Every kilometre opened up to allow for that breath makes a big difference,” he said, whether it’s setting dikes further back from the riverbank or reopening the creeks and sloughs that have been cut off from the Fraser for too long.

Several years ago Watershed Watch Salmon Society identified 156 flood control structures, such as gates and pump stations, that block access to rearing and spawning habitat or — in the case of pump stations — actually grind up fish when they’re operating. 

“We build our (flood control) structures for the extreme,” Azeez said. “But those extremes, although they might be getting more and more frequent, are not an everyday occurrence, they might happen once a year, and the rest of the year salmon have a hard time getting into these habitats.”

Watershed Watch has been pushing for communities to upgrade these structures to let salmon back into these habitats. 

Azeez pointed to a recent success story at the Agassiz Slough, where a small culvert was replaced with a large flood gate just before the November floods. For most of the year that gate can remain open, she said, allowing both salmon and nutrients to flow freely. During high flows, the gate can be closed, protecting the community behind it from a possible flood.

But there’s still a lot more work to be done: about 150 of those 156 structures Watershed Watch identified still need to be upgraded, Azeez said.

Today’s decisions will have impacts for decades

Whether those remaining flood gates, culverts and pump stations get upgraded, whether communities build new or bigger dikes or whether they choose to move out of high-risk floodplains and allow those ecosystems to restore themselves, the conversations communities are having today and the decisions that are made in the coming months will have lasting impacts for people, salmon and whole ecosystems.

In some low-lying areas, where the risks are particularly high, it might make the most sense for people to move out of the floodplain, Lyle said. Not only would that return vital habitat to salmon, but it could reduce the overall flood risk for other areas by opening up space for the river to expand during high flows.

These can be challenging and complex conversations for communities to have, but in the context of a changing climate, growing flood risks and struggling salmon populations, they’re becoming increasingly important. 

Fear that the next big flood could be just around the corner could drive shortsighted decision-making. Instead, Lyle said, we should slow down and consider the bigger picture.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.