I would like to compliment The NEWS on that wonderful and thorough article by Auren Ruvinsky regarding Hamilton Marsh and would like to add some vital information regarding water and the dollar value of protecting ecosystems.
The French Creek Watershed study by the Ministry of Environment says “Hamilton Swamp, located northwest of Coombs, illustrates detention storage and buffering capacity of wetlands. These wetlands may provide slow leakage into groundwater aquifers and may be important to sustaining base flows in streams.”
The RDN website under Drinking Water & Watershed Protection Program reads: “The French Creek Water Region consists of steep forested headlands that drain from the mountains at 1,080 meters above sea level, and the more gentle topography of the Nanaimo lowlands. The total drainage area is approximately 121 sq. km. It includes most of the communities of Parksville, Qualicum Beach and parts of Electoral Area F (including Hilliers, Coombs, Errington) and Area G (French Creek).” It is the most stressed watershed in the area.
We noted from aerial photos and with local knowledge that Hamilton Marsh also flows into the former Arrowsmith Farms reservoir (across Hilliers Road South). From that reservoir water flows into a ditch that runs across the property into a creek that runs under Gilbert Road, and likely flows into Crocker Creek, then Whiskey Creek, and finally into the Little Qualicum River. That is a lot of influence from one wetland. The importance of letting nature serve as infrastructure cannot be under-estimated especially as regards water.
An article from The Globe and Mail titled “That Wetland isn’t just pretty — it’s quantifiable infrastructure” is worth a read (here’s an excerpt):
“The town of Gibsons, B.C., has gone as far as to declare nature its most important asset, giving it the same infrastructure standing in municipal books as roads and bridges and deliberately using forests and foreshores as wallet-friendly alternatives to constructing assets that need to be maintained each year. Other Canadian municipalities are lining up to pilot similar approaches.”
Local governments have been given the responsibility of managing watersheds but not the authority to do so — especially on private forest lands. This needs to change and it appears the province is who we should be addressing.
Our video with stunning aerial views of Hamilton Marsh can be viewed on our website: http://hamilton-marsh.com
I close with one little correction. The acronym for our group — The Friends of French Creek Conservation Society — is FFCCS.
Ceri PeaceyHilliers
