WC138 SeptOct 2024 - Flipbook - Page 28
STORMWATER
Reclaiming land for water
In the aforementioned Seoul, South Korea, the Cheonggyecheon
Stream Restoration Project has yielded multiple benefits. Among
them, providing protection for up to a 200-year flood event, increasing biodiversity by over 600 per cent, and reducing the heat
island effect. And yet another benefit from an urban renewal perspective: transforming a high traffic area into a desirable place to
visit and recreate that, at last count, attracts 64,000 visitors daily.
Commenting on how this project keeps on giving, Khirfan
observed “it’s a beautiful linear park but… when there is severe
rainwater, the whole area becomes a flood mitigation system… it
saves property and lives.”
Through her research, Khirfan has gained a national, if not
international, reputation as an expert on daylighting, leading to
speaking requests like the one she gave a few years back in Charlottetown, a city particularly prone to flooding in low lying areas
during extreme weather conditions.
In her talk and accompanying overview document, Khirfan
shared: “to tackle the combined effects of land reclamation (that
involved paving over rivers and streams)… we propose to reclaim
land for water… in other words, re-naturalizing and deepening
Governor’s Pond (most of which is now a parking lot) and daylighting its urban stream.”
While well received, Khirfan said to the best of her knowledge,
Charlottetown has yet to act on these recommendations. However, she says the nascent practice of daylighting is beginning to
gain traction in other parts of the country.
Prioritizing daylighting
Sam Austin, councillor for Dartmouth Centre (part of the Halifax Regional Municipality) “has a priority toward daylighting
where we can,” including recently putting out tenders for the
estimated $40-million Sawmill Creek daylighting project.
“When it’s all said and done [the project] will take the river
above ground down to the harbour and there’s a bunch of other
things wrapped into that, [including] a new bridge over the river,
some infrastructure road work, some new park space, and there
will be a new pond,” said Austin, whose passion for renewal as an
urban planner is what ultimately inspired him to run for office.
“So, it’s more than just daylighting a river [and is] absolutely a
major undertaking,” said Austin. An undertaking, not unlike the
one in Seoul, that will help to beautify and enhance Dartmouth’s
downtown core. “This is also a climate change project and an
adaptation piece, because the daylighted river that’s coming back
above ground will have more stormwater capacity than the pipe
does. So, at the end of the project… [the site] will be more resilient than it is now.” An enhancement that should more than pay
for itself in light of such incidents as last year’s heavy rain that
lasted for hours, causing flash floods on busy roads and highways
throughout the municipality.
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Austin noted the initiative will also yield ecological benefits.
“Once we daylight the Sawmill rivers, we’ve got a separate project
to build a fish ladder… that will enable the (Atlantic fish) Gaspereau to swim upstream to Lake Banook for the first time in 50
years. Once it’s restored, there could be 200-300,000 fish going
upstream,” he adds with the spillover benefits being improved
water quality and “moving nutrients from a closed lake system
back to the ocean.”
Biodiversity and more
Echoing many of the benefits on Austin’s list, Margot Davis, the
City of Vancouver’s Manager, Environmental Services, observed
“beyond its biodiversity and wildlife improvements, daylighting
has now been expanded to (encompass) a full suite of benefits.”
Although they can vary depending on the scope of the project,
wins for the city she rhymes off include increased tree and vegetation that supports air quality improvement and cooling of places,
carbon storage, and the conveyance of storm (in support of )
flood management.
Other intangibles daylighting can deliver, she said, include creating a sense of place, improving access to nature, and supporting
greater community well being.
Despite these multiple benefits, Davis admits that Vancouver’s
daylighting options are “heavily impacted” by development and
high densification in the downtown area. “There are significant
challenges for adapting to daylight and re-naturalizing streams in
a heavily urban area,” she said. And adding to those barriers both
from a cost and land use perspective, “we have a strong need for
affordable housing, and we have a strong need just for housing.
So, we’re trying to balance all the competing needs and there’s
only so much space.”
But Davis says opportunities still do exist in city-owned parks
whereby engineering is taking a much stronger role in starting to
integrate streams and potential daylighting as part of (managing)
core infrastructure assets, with the overarching goal of “amplifying ecological health.”
In contrast to downtown Vancouver, she noted in other, less
densely populated Metro Vancouver municipalities, there are a
greater number of streams that are still open and there are sections (currently covered over) that are much easier to consider as
candidates for daylighting.
Making projects happen
City of Vancouver Senior Planner Chad Townsend said one such
area that shows promise is Still Creek, which flows across Central
Burnaby into Burnaby Lake. “We think we can expand that area
to make it better handle filtration and also provide better habitat,
basically in a redeveloping neighborhood. We also have one in
Canyon Creek within Spanish Banks Park, which is underneath
a parking lot and a dog park. That’s one we think we can fairly
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
