Students at a Colwood school are taking time out from mapping their futures, to help build a map which could be “critical” in helping protect Greater Victoria from flooding.
In partnership with the Resilient Urban Systems and Habitat (RUSH) Initiative, Grade 11 and 12 Royal Bay Secondary School students have been making a note of local ‘rain gardens’, which help absorb stormwater runoff from surfaces such as roofs.
The initiative was set up in response to a lack of information about green infrastructure in the Capital Regional District (CRD), which RUSH says makes it difficult to plan for an “extreme precipitation” event.
“Atmospheric rivers are a dime a dozen,” said Anne-Marie Daniel, the community partner and director of RUSH. “But we don't know where our rain gardens are, so we can't figure out whether we have enough absorptive surface.”
The project aims to map at least 1,000 rain gardens across Greater Victoria, which will then be presented to the CRD.
Information gathered will help municipalities in the CRD assess the risk of flooding and identify opportunities to improve flood protection across the district.
“This project is kind of mission critical if we want to be prepared,” said Daniel. “We're just trying to get ahead of it, rather than pulling together in an emergency.”
Daniel says information is also lacking about the number and location of storm drains across the CRD. So the RUSH Initiative will also be recruiting Grade 3 students to help create a storm drain map.
Since November, 135 rain gardens have been located by high school students, 23 of them by Royal Bay, which earned them the reward of a pizza party with Colwood Mayor Doug Kobayashi, sponsored by Victoria Drains.
“I think taking care of the environment is really important, especially for our future,” said 16-year-old Piper Young. “The way it's going it's detrimental to us in the long run. More people need to be aware of the effects that we have on the environment and how we are negatively impacting it.”
While he might be planning to study music and art post-Grade 12, 17-year-old Raine Hermosa says he felt drawn to take part in the rain garden mapping project because of an interest in city planning and the environment.
“I'm a person who just loves going outside and I also love maps and exploring,” he said. “So the way it was set up just kind of scratched my brain in the right way.”
The project has also inspired Hermosa to give back to his community, something he plans to keep up throughout his life.
“I'm definitely going to be involved in community organizations," he says. “I want to keep learning about where I live, how we can improve where we're living … maybe even involve my art in it somehow.”
For Mayor Kobayashi, the students' work gives him hope at a time when he feels public opinion is changing in the face of economic pressure, pushing environmental issues down people’s list of priorities.
“I'm really proud of them,” he said about the students, who he adds also play a pivotal role in helping to clean up Havenwood Park. “It's important to keep people connected to the issue of the environment, and projects like this help … they kind of drive home the message as well.
“It's unfortunate that it's my generation, us baby boomers, who created a lot of the problems we have today and we're expecting these young people to fix our problems and clean it up,” he adds. “You know what, they're keeping us accountable.”
For more information about the RUSH Initiative and to see the green infrastructure map in action, visit the website: https://whatstherush.ca.
