Get Involved

There are numerous opportunities to get involved with the Shared Waters Alliance.  The City of Surrey SHaRP program is an example of environmental stewardship at work!

Salmon Habitat Restoration Program and Environmental Stewardship
City of Surrey

Project in Brief Conceived by the City in 1996, the Salmon Habitat Restoration Program ("SHaRP”) was initiated to provide erosion control and the in-stream restoration of degraded salmonid habitat in Surrey watercourses. The program exemplifies the City's innovation and commitment, and is exceptional among British Columbia municipalities due to its size, its integrated approach, and its commitment to career-oriented and leadership-focused training for local youth. As the SHaRP program has evolved over the last eleven years, students have delivered a broader, more integrated watershed approach that addresses:

Project in Brief
Conceived by the City in 1996, the Salmon Habitat Restoration Program ("SHaRP”) was initiated to provide erosion control and the in-stream restoration of degraded salmonid habitat in Surrey watercourses. The program exemplifies the City's innovation and commitment, and is exceptional among British Columbia municipalities due to its size, its integrated approach, and its commitment to career-oriented and leadership-focused training for local youth. As the SHaRP program has evolved over the last eleven years, students have delivered a broader, more integrated watershed approach that addresses:

• instream and riparian area restoration;

• invasive plant species removal;

• public education and community outreach; and

• agricultural stewardship.

Environmental programs delivered by the City of Surrey are currently undergoing a change to increase the awareness of residents to a broader scope of environmental topics and to increase the amount of education opportunities by delivering programs year-round.

Project Description and Objectives
The need for the restoration, enhancement and protection of Surrey's vital salmonid habitat led to the development of a habitat enhancement and restoration program with the following broad-based objectives:

• Promote the City of Surrey's continued commitment to the protection, restoration and enhancement of the city's environmental features and functions;

• Advance the City of Surrey's on-going community awareness, stream stewardship education and pollution abatement initiatives;

• Provide career-oriented work experience and leadership development opportunities for local college and university students in various environment and resource management disciplines; and

• Provide technically and physically challenging summer employment to Surrey high school students.

To fulfill these objectives, in 1996, the engineering department implemented the Salmon Habitat Restoration Program (“SHaRP”) which involved students from local high schools and colleges in paid rehabilitation activities such as ravine clean-up, stream bank planting, spawning bed enhancements, and minor erosion control works. The summer program expanded rapidly to include environmental education activities and involved 43 students by 1998. Then, in 2000, the program took on a pro-active watershed stewardship approach, which involved the establishment of three watershed teams in north, central and south Surrey. An entire watershed education team was initiated and numerous educational campaigns were developed and conducted. The watershed stewardship approach was highly successful and set the stage for subsequent programs. In 2001, an agricultural integration component was added to reach a larger audience within Surrey. The agriculture team students worked with local farmers on integrating environment and agriculture needs in habitat restoration. Key projects included livestock exclusion fencing, community education, invasive plant species removal and debris removal.  In 2005, an industrial education team called the “Clean Team” joined the program to increase the awareness of pollution prevention through marking storm drains with yellow fish, garbage removal, graffiti removal, and community outreach programs. In 2005, the Clean Team students successfully visited 600 businesses and distributed Industrial Education material, visited over 760 residents, informing them of safe household environmental practices, marked 100 storm drains to discourage dumping, undertook over 90 graffiti removal sites for poles, electrical boxes, and lampstands, painted 17 cross culvert fish symbols, and cleaned up 7 garbage removal sites. 

	For 2006, the SHaRP program is focusing again on watershed-based enhancements, public & community education opportunities, agriculture stewardship opportunities, enhancement of capital works projects, and pollution prevention initiatives.
A key area where SHaRP crews will focus a lot of their work is the enhancement of the creeks within the Campbell Heights Development. The teams will be conducting significant vegetative and riparian complexing at the site and will be installing various bank stabilization features utilizing bioengineering techniques.

Partners
Support for the program has grown to include financial participation from the provincial and federal governments, and the Surrey School District. Many secondary and post-secondary institutions and local businesses continue to contribute in-kind support, and a large number of Surrey-based community groups represent important stewardship partners. This year's funding partners include, City of Surrey, HRDC, Shell Canada, the Real Estate Foundation of BC, Wal-Mart Evergreen, and the Agriculture Environment Partnership Initiative (BC Agriculture Council).

In addition to the funding partners, SHaRP students team with local community groups on initiatives such as riparian plantings, instream debris removal, community education, instream habitat complexing, invasive species removals and trail deactivation projects.

Results
Since 1996, the SHaRP program has provided employment to over 325 post-secondary and high school students. Student interest and support is significant given the career-oriented training and experience that the program offers. A position on the SHaRP team is highly sought after by post-secondary and high school students from across the Lower Mainland and the province. Achievements and benefits realized over the eleven years of SHaRP include:

• Over 100 tons of debris removed from local creeks;

• 5300 plants established in riparian zones;

• The stabilization of over 1000 metres of creek banks;

• Over 1400 businesses contacted regarding discharges of contaminants to storm systems;

• Over 350 stream sites revitalized throughout Surrey; and

• The education of Surrey residents about salmon habitat enhancement through over 430 daycares, day camps, and community events.

Lessons Learned
The SHaRP program has evolved to show how environmental stewardship principals can be integrated within a community. The success of more watershed based approaches to stream stewardship, agricultural stewardship integrations, industrial and community education has helped to preserve the natural resources within the City. All levels of government and the public can join efforts to enhance their environment.

Next Steps
The City of Surrey is proud of SHaRP's successes and will continue with the development of the program.  As the City of Surrey grows in size so does the size of environmental programs. New for 2006, a year-round environmental stewardship program is being developed.  The mission for this new “Nature Matters” program is to enhance natural habitat, increase youth involvement and address environmental issues.  The mission will be achieved through engaging in activities that restore and enhance natural areas, integrating initiatives within programs that compliment school curricula, provide agricultural stewardship education to residents, develop programs to foster volunteerism and increase awareness to residents of environmental issues through community events.

Contact
The Engineering Department of the City of Surrey manages the contract with the outside consultant hired to conduct the program each year. Dillon Consulting has been retained to carry out the SHaRP program since 1996 to date. Key program coordinators include:

Liana Giles, Environmental Technologist
Phone: 604-591-4383
Carrie Baron, Drainage & Environment Manager
Phone: 604-591-4278

Paul Schaap, Principal, Dillon Consulting Limited
Phone: 604-278-7847