The Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN) has won the Environmental Operators Certification Program (EOCP)’s Innovation Award for 2020 for its Drinking Water and Watershed Protection Program. The award recognizes individuals or organizations that have applied new ways of thinking that positively transform the water industry.

For over a decade the RDN’s Drinking Water and Watershed Protection (DWWP) program has enabled and facilitated high levels of collaboration across the water operators and purveyors in the region, as well as within the community and with senior government.

Program initiatives include providing public outreach, educational resources and rebates in support of water conservation; offering professional development and networking sessions for small water system operators; and collecting monitoring data and supporting regional studies to better understand the watersheds and aquifers that provide the source waters for community drinking water. The key innovation has been streamlining communications across agencies and using watershed boundaries as a lens to implement and enable sustainable and collaborative water management in the region.

“We are honoured that the EOCP committee was unanimous in its decision to present the Innovation Award to the RDN. The DWWP Program has excelled at coordinating efforts between the many water providers in the region, united by the common goal of water sustainability,” said RDN chair Ian Thorpe.

This recognition is timely, as the Regional District of Nanaimo board earlier this year adopted an updated 10-Year Action Plan for the Drinking Water and Watershed Protection service. Region-wide initiatives in water awareness and stewardship; water information and science; and water-centric planning and policy support will continue to be delivered in support of healthy, safe and resilient water resources in the region.