Presentation delivered at Watersheds Forum, Harrop BC, Mar 18, 2017

1. Community Watersheds:
Challenges and Points of Influence
March 18, 2017
West Kootenay Watersheds Forum
Tara Lynne Clapp

2.  What are problems and frustrations?
 What is the decision/regulation structure?
 What are the influence points?
 Where are the bright spots on the horizon?
Outline

3. Pressures on Watersheds
Logging
Laird 2011
Duhamel
2012
Schroeder Creek 2013
Campbell
Creek 2013
Climate Change

4. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
human health and safety
slope instability/mudslide
surface drinking water quality or supply
groundwater quality or supply
recreational values
biodiversity
forest health
Chosen in top three
Survey: What values most threatened
by current development?

5. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Cumulative impact of decisions over time
Negotiated agreements about protection levels abandoned
Difficulty of intervening in current resource planning process
Renewed intensity of resource development
Responses
Frustrations

6.  Definition: Government relies on opinion of Professional
(Forester, etc) hired by operator for their judgement of
acceptability
 Comment Summary
 No impartial oversight, lack of enforcement
 Multi-use dominant
 Resource development over protection
 ‘Regulatory capture’
 Renewed resource development in community
watersheds
 Community involvement more difficult
Frustrations:
‘Professional Reliance’

7.  Complicated, unclear, and difficult involvement:
 Little support for community watershed groups in process
 Sometimes we get "consulted", but the consultation has little
effect on the outcome
 Volunteer overload and/or apathy
 Lack of direct public involvement in standing regional
committees
 Authority of local groups over Crown land
 No legal right to any say in what happens.
 Awareness/Values
 Dumping of garbage in watersheds
 Lack of community support for change
Frustrations: Community
involvement and capacity

8.  Context of major change: climate, hydrology,
ecosystem, biodiversity
 Development pressure
 Regulatory system in place to support and facilitate
rapid development
 Professional reliance like delegated stewardship
 Government agencies lack ability to make informed
decisions: budget, data, personnel
 Limitations set on scope and influence of local
involvement
Summary of problems

9.  There is no one entity or group that has decision-making or
oversight responsibility for land use and water in
watersheds
 Crown land use regulated by Province with community
input in limited ways
 RDCK asked to give advice on some tenure applications
 Forest and Range Practices Act says that community
watersheds must be protected from harms to quality,
quantity, timing of flow, and from cumulative hydrological
effects
 Agencies with land use and water responsibility re: logging
on community watersheds, see handout
‘Typical’ community watershed
decision making in Kootenays

10. Community
Watershed
Value
Statute Agency Office responsible Comment
Drinking Water
Source
Protection
Drinking Water
Act
IHA Environmental
Health Officer
Latent for
smaller
watersheds
Drinking Water
Supply
Water
Sustainability Act
FLNRO Water Sustainability Responsibility,
not enough
information
Forest land use Forest and
Range Practices
Act
FLNRO,
Forests
Forest District Negotiation
with licensee,
FPB complaints
Water Quality:
Objectives
Water
Sustainability Act
and DWA
FLNRO Not yet
determined
Water Flow:
EFlow
Water
Sustainability Act
FLNRO Water Sustainability Responsibility,
little data
Community watersheds framework

11.  What are ‘community watersheds’?
Community Watersheds

12. Community
Watersheds
: Physical
Area of land that is defined by a
high ground, such that water
flows within it to a single outflow,
or river
Most watersheds on Kootenay
Lake have drinking water use,
homes below

13. Community Watershed:
Social/Political
Physical: about 7 creeks
and an aquifer
Mix of private land,
Crown land
Tenures include aquifer
usage, forestry

14.  A physical watershed that serves a community with its drinking
water
 typically means surface water
 Water Providers
 regulated by IHA (Drinking Water Act)
 required to provide potable water, protect water source to tap
 Water User Communities, Societies, Improvement Districts
 Surface or ground, creek or lake
 Drinking Water Act provides for protection of source water,
including threats to water quality … BUT
 Planning provision has not been used, watershed protection
measures rarely used
Community Watershed: Drinking
Water

15. When is a community watershed not
a community watershed?
Argenta and Thrums

16.  Source + organization = Community Watershed for
the Province
 Intended to engage higher standard of care for
resource operators
Community Watershed Status

17. Community Watershed Status

18. Community Watershed Status

19. Community Watershed Status

20. Community Watershed Status
Coutts Creek

21.  Requirements to protect drinking water not clear or well
understood
 Commitments made in forestry plans to protect drinking
water are not always enforceable.
 Greater emphasis needs to be placed on erosion and
sediment control on forestry roads, including legacy roads
 Government does not monitor current forest practices to
see if drinking water objectives are achieved in
community watersheds
 Source: Forest Practices Board Study, 2014
Report: Designated Community
Watershed and Forestry

22. 1. Clarify FRPA’s requirements for the protection of water.
2. Define concept of cumulative hydrological effects.
3. Strengthen content and approval of forest stewardship
plans.
4. Ensure content of professional assessments is
meaningful.
5. Monitor achievement of community watershed objective.
6. Update status of community watersheds.
* Source: Forest Practices Board Study, 2014
Recommendations from Forest
Practices Board

23.  in the view of FRPA and the Crown … communities
have no ‘stewardship claim’ to the community
watershed
 The water protection standard is both very low and
unenforceable
 Communities continue to look for ways to protect
themselves from unacceptable risks and to protect
their watersheds from degradation
Summary

24.  Formal
 Mitigation
 Protection
 Informal
 Affect interpretation of statutes
 Affect future regulations
How to influence decisions?

25. Approach Example Effect on Decisions /
Outcomes
Framework limitations
Consultation
on Plans
Duhamel,
Glade,
Argenta
Some, if values are a good
fit
Community input is one
factor in overall Professional
Recommendation
Performance
Monitoring
Glade,
Wolverton,
Duhamel
Able to identify problems,
performance breaches
Within framework that
operator will act responsibly
to respond to issues
Complaint to
Forest
Practices
Board
Laird
Creek,
Silverton,
Ainsworth,
Sitkum,
Fletcher,
Carter
Creek
1. Lower standard of
operation without
Community Watershed
status (Ainsworth,
Silverton cases)
2. Is activity compliant
(typically yes)
Within framework that
Province decides what land is
open to logging
Mitigation approaches

26.  Provincial: Seek protection as Park, Conservation
Land
 West Arm Wilderness Park
 Argenta/Mt Willett example
Protection Approaches

27.  Develop constituency through Union of BC Municipalities
 Small water users exclusion (good example success and
resistance)
 Support UBCM’s recommendations in its Forestry
 Roundtable
http://www.ubcm.ca/EN/main/resolutions/policy-
areas/community-economic-development.html
 Participate in development of Water Sustainability Act
regulations
Affect Regulatory Process

28.  Water Sustainability Act
 Environmental flow
 Management by objectives
 Collaborative watershed governance/management
 Examples emerging across the Province
 Pilot projects established
Bright spots on the horizon

29.  Opportunities
 Water quality management by objectives
 Will land operators be subject to the requirement not to
degrade water?
 Requirement for ‘environmental flow’ …
 Will ‘environmental flow’ standard have quality
standards (temperature, turbidity) that are supportive
of aquatic life?
 Water Sustainability Plan
 Regulation of the WSA that could be triggered in
conditions of conflict, not likely to apply to smaller
watersheds
Water Sustainability Act

30.  Move towards collaborative/cooperative forms of
watershed governance at larger scales
 Strengthen protective status of ‘community
watershed’ as protective of drinking water
 Work with Province to allow greater Municipal role
for management of ‘ecosystem services’
Watershed Governance