Alouette Watershed Adopt-a-Stream Pilot


Year 2011
Leader Alouette River Management Society
Project type Engagement
FSWP funding source Living Rivers
Grant amount $12,050
Total project cost $62,201
ID number FSWP11-LR46-E

Location: Greater Vancouver, Alouette Watershed, Dogwood Creek, McKenney Creek and Morse Creek

Project Summary

SUMMARY

The Alouette watershed adopt-a-stream pilot program will encourage and assist neighborhoods, families, individuals, local schools, and clubs to engage with their local waterways. The Alouette River Management Society (ARMS) will facilitate groups to take active leadership roles in the protection, information gathering, and restoration of their local waterways. Groups may undertake a variety of activities such as invasive plant removals, storm drain markings, picking up litter and debris, or stream monitoring.

DESCRIPTION

As the communities of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows rapidly expand, so too do our concerns for our local waterways. There are three major areas of concern, first, ongoing development increases the urgency for our local rivers to be monitored, protected, and advocated for to ensure they don’t become lost rivers. Second, with over 35 % of the watershed classified as residential and another 38 % as agricultural land, it is often difficult for stewardship groups to access parts of the watershed for monitoring and third, the population growth and influx has increased the potential that community members are disconnected from their local waterways and less likely to be able to identify the name, biology, history and seasonality of their local stream. Unengaged community members are unlikely to prevent degradation due to lack of observation and reporting. All the above issues combined with limited resources of stewardship groups create a sound rationale for piloting different mechanisms to protect, restore and maintain watershed health.
The Alouette Watershed adopt-a-stream program serves to connect community members, local schools, and neighborhoods with their local environment and waterways through monitoring, protection, and rehabilitation of their local streams. Households, groups and schools in the vicinity of the many tributaries of the North and South Alouette Rivers will be encouraged to ‘adopt’ a stream or reaches of a stream. The particulars of each ‘adoption’ will vary but some activities that volunteers might undertake are spawner surveys, water quality or temperature monitoring, invasive plant removals, shoreline clean-ups, and storm drain marking.
The adopt-a-stream program is essentially capacity building in support of effective agents of change. With the overall goals to nurture a sense of ownership and empower community members to become stewards of their local waterways, to entrench partnerships, and facilitate processes of communication and reporting. To achieve our goals the project will involve education and engagement with school groups and other community members, research and monitoring of stream health, and advocacy for protection and rehabilitation of our waterways.

OBJECTIVES

  • Engage, encourage, and educate community members, students, and teachers to become active stewards and resource managers
  • To research, assess, monitor, and improve watershed health around the Alouette River
  • Streamline communication and reporting processes between the community members, community groups, district officials, and other officials
  • To follow through by fully establishing an adopt-a-stream program throughout the watershed

METHODS

The project methodology will consist of four parts:

1. Building Alouette watershed student stewards. For each stream involved in the pilot project, ARMS will partner with a class from one of the schools in the vicinity. The program for their ‘adoption’ will be developed with the teacher and bearing in mind class curricular goals and Fisheries and Oceans Community Advisors and Pacific Streamkeepers procedures and guidelines. The goal is to complete a monitoring, clean-up, and assessment project with a particular class and teacher with the hopes that the teacher will carry on the program in the following year. Once the program is designed the class, teacher, and ARMS staff will complete a monthly activity by the stream. The class will also be encouraged to complete further analysis and other projects such as art projects related to the stream within their regular course work.


2. Neighborhood stewards. Information packages will be designed and delivered to riparian landowners along the selected tributaries and selected households in the neighborhood. Other methods will also be used for initial contact such as identification of interested households through the district planning offices, contacting neighborhood associations, the use of Volunteer Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows and the use of local newspapers. This contact will be followed by an invitation to attend an information session. The sessions will be used to engage with landowners interested in completing stewardship projects.


3. Research and monitoring. Research and monitoring programs will be designed with the groups involved and will follow Fisheries and Oceans Community Advisors and Pacific Streamkeepers

4. Protection and Rehabilitation. Data and information gained from adopt-a-stream groups will be analyzed and reported on by ARMS staff. This data will then be used in annual review and planning sessions for larger projects to be completed in the watershed. Adopt-a-stream groups will be invited to provide further input and suggest ideas for remediation.


5. Communication and reporting processes. Protocols and lines of communication will be established through liaising and solidifying the Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows Environmental Council as well as through meeting with the District Environmental Planning Department and District of Maple Ridge Operations Department.

BENEFITS

The adopt-a-stream project contributes to healthy watershed and the capacity of the community through the promotion and training of good stewardship practices and by establishing commitment of identified community members to protect their local ecosystems. Teachers will also be trained in designing and implementing activities that utilize their local waterways and riparian areas, while promoting stewardship. Improving the overall connection of neighborhoods to their local waterway will encourage citizen action to ensure that these systems remain healthy. Establishing the connection between these groups and ARMS as well as to other like-minded community organization means that these groups will have support and resources to improve the overall capacity of the community. More ‘active eyes’ monitoring the salmon populations along the tributaries of the Alouette River will result in a better understanding of the state of the system as well as to identify changes that might result from development.