The City of Delta has issued a request for proposals for a qualified environmental professional to conduct a watercourse assessment within the city and determine a new classification system that will establish riparian setback widths for each watercourse.
Those standards are to follow the provincial Riparian Areas Protection Regulation (RAPR).
Riparian areas link water to land, bordering streams, lakes and wetlands.
The blend of stream bed, water, trees, shrubs and grasses in a riparian area provides fish habitat and directly influences it.
The City of Delta has hundreds of kilometres of watercourses.
Delta’s natural hydrology has been significantly altered by historic modifications, particularly in the lowlands, while the drainage system is currently heavily manipulated by municipal infrastructure such as pump stations, flood boxes, weirs, baffles and culverts.
Local governments must develop bylaws that protect the riparian areas of all streams that either bear fish or flow into fish bearing streams during residential, commercial and industrial development by ensuring that a qualified environmental professional conducts a science-based assessment of proposed activities.
Delta’s Official Community Plan (OCP) has Streamside Protection and Enhancement Area (SPEA) provisions, but the city is now in the process of updating those by establishing pre-determined riparian setbacks that will meet or beat the minimum required setbacks for a watercourse.
The request for proposals notes the intent of the project is to help property owners and city staff proactively identify the extent of SPEAs to protect riparian areas from development encroachment.
“This project has significant complexities and requires multiple stages of planning and implementation. The scope of this project is all streams (natural and channelized streams, sloughs, ponds, creeks, brooks, ditches), springs and wetlands within the City of Delta but does not include the tidal reaches of the Fraser River, Boundary Bay, the Salish Sea or isolated water features that are not connected to fish-bearing waters by surface flow,” the city explains.
The province must approve the city’s standards.
Due to funding limitations, the project must be completed by Dec. 31, 2025, the city adds.
