Goat River Watershed Water Sustainability Planning

A WSP is a planning and governance tool under BC’s Water Sustainability Act. It is developed collaboratively with Indigenous Nations, local governments, and communities to address water challenges such as conflicts between users, risks to water quality, or threats to ecosystem health. 

A WSP is considered when there are clear risks or conflicts that can’t be solved by existing tools—such as drought pressures, groundwater declines, or ecosystem damage. It provides a way for governments and communities to work together and create enforceable solutions tailored to the watershed. 

Benefits include: 
– Protecting drinking water sources and aquatic ecosystems. 
– Building stronger relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous governments. 
– Bringing all water users—residents, farmers, businesses—into one conversation. 
– Developing enforceable regulations that can actually influence land and water use decisions. 
– Creating a long-term plan for sustainable water management that reduces conflict and increases certainty.

A WSP must be co-developed with First Nations whose territories are in the watershed. The Province must also be a partner, since the plan has legislative authority. Local governments may be invited to lead parts of the process. Improvement districts, water users, and community groups are invited to participate in shaping priorities and solutions.

Once approved by the Minister, a WSP can lead to regulations that are legally binding. These can require decision-makers to consider the plan in issuing permits or land-use decisions, or restrict certain activities that threaten water or ecosystem health. This makes a WSP stronger than voluntary agreements or advisory plans.

Developing a WSP is a multi-year effort (at least 3–5 years). It involves issue identification, building partnerships, co-developing the plan, and setting up monitoring and adaptive management.

Unlike voluntary watershed plans, a WSP is backed by provincial law. It can result in enforceable regulations, apply to both surface water and groundwater, and require provincial and local decision-makers to follow its direction.

Forestry is absolutely part of the story of watershed health, activities such as road building, harvesting, and replanting all influence how water moves through the landscape. Disturbance in headwaters can change the timing and amount of flow, increase sediment, and affect water temperature. So it’s important that we understand and monitor those effects. However, a Water Sustainability Plan is not a forestry plan. Under the Water Sustainability Act, a WSP is a water-focused tool used when there are risks to water quantity, water quality, or aquatic ecosystem health, or conflicts between users. Its purpose is to bring governments, First Nations, and communities together to decide how water is managed – who uses it, how much is available, and what measures are needed to sustain environmental flow. The WSP process can identify that upstream land-use activities are contributing to water stress, but it addresses those issues through the lens of water by improving data, setting up flow objectives, and coordinating decisions across agencies. Broader questions about timber supply, forest tenure, or logging approvals remain under the Forest and Range Practices Act and the provincial forest ministry.

The Goat River Watershed is considered a sensitive ecosystem because it provides critical ecological and hydrological functions that directly influence community water supply, fish habitat, and agricultural productivity. The watershed supports surface and groundwater systems that are hydrologically connected to the Canyon (0489) and East Creston/Lister (0488) aquifer, both of which are provincially recognized as at-risk drinking water sources and agricultural supply areas. See a breakdown of the research we are referencing here (page 3)

The Creston Valley Alternative Water Supply Feasibility Study https://engage.rdck.ca/cvstudy examined the technical potential of supplementing irrigation water from the Kootenay River, recognizing that existing allocations from Goat River and Arrow Creek are nearing capacity during low-flow periods.  

These findings underscore that further site-specific testing would be required before making a final selection of the Kootenay River as an irrigation source. The study reference can be found here: The Creston Centralized Water Feasibility Study (2025, DRAFT) details these assessments, including flow modelling and source water analysis. [RDCK Draft Report, Feb 2025]