Municipality of North Cowichan, British Columbia

address environmental concerns. They have a long-standing sewage treatment system (a lagoon system) right next to the Cowichan River. It works fine; the discharge is well within provincial standards, but the effluent, the liquid that’s left over, is discharged into the river. The discharge has been well-treated and meets all Health Canada standards. But the problem is that, due to climate change, the river flow in the summer is diminishing and the dilution of water to effluent is less than it used to be. “We need to acknowledge that,” says Siebring. “When we re-signed the lease for the lagoons many years ago, which are on First Nations land, we did so with the commitment that we would try to move the outfall out of the river and that’s what we’re working on now. It’s a very expensive project and we’ve been saving for it for years. We hope to get that outfall well out into the ocean away from the mouth of the river to solve those issues.” In 2013, North Cowichan implemented an award- winning Climate Action & Energy Plan that sets goals for community and corporate GHG emissions reductions. At that time, Council put in place a half percent property tax surcharge and that money goes specifically into the Climate Action & Energy fund to support environmental initiatives which the municipality engages in to reduce corporate emissions. For example, they recently had to replace a Zamboni at one of the hockey rinks and chose a more expensive electric model instead of the conventional propane. That extra cost was taken from the Climate Action & Energy fund because the purchase was another concrete way to reduce emissions. Speaking to attributes that make North Cowichan a sought-after destination, Ernie Mansueti, North Cowichan’s General Manager of Community Services, shares, “We’re always looking for opportunities to bring in sporting events or community events - any event that does not cost the participant any money to attend. For instance, we lobbied hard to get Hometown Hockey with Ron McLean and Tara Sloan here. That event actually brought in over