Resolution NR28 – Support flood recovery that creates safe communities and healthy, resilient ecosystems.

Whereas the tragic flood events of November 2021 highlighted that conventional approaches to managing floods have not ensured public safety, lead to province-wide disruptions of infrastructure and food supply, weakened our flood storage capacity in the floodplain and further degraded the ecological health.

And whereas many flood control structures (e.g. dikes and associated floodgates and pumps) are unnecessarily blocking access to important habitats for wild salmon (e.g., over 1,500 km in the lower Fraser River floodplain) and many of these structures are undersized for climate related increases in flooding as experienced during the November 2021 floods.

Therefore be it resolved that UBCM call on the Federal and Provincial governments to ensure flood control projects provide multiple benefits to communities by aligning flood control funding and criteria with other core objectives such as reconciliation, wild salmon recovery, biodiversity, green infrastructure, climate adaptation and mitigation, emergency preparedness and “building back better”.

And be it further resolved that Fisheries and Oceans Canada, BC Ministry of Forests and Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship co-create Best Management Practices to provide technical guidance for local governments on achieving short-and long-term flood recovery needs that are multi-beneficial and improve climate adaptation needs.