Fishtrap Creek - Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP)

Thank you for following the Fishtrap Creek Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP) project on Let's Talk Abbotsford, and contacting the City with your questions.

Lowland flooding issues are identified near creek channels and ponds on agricultural fields by the draft ISMP. Some areas are expected to be flooding in 1 in 10-year and 1 in 100-year storm events, under both existing and future conditions, and some flooding would happen in smaller than 10-year storms.  

The draft Fishtrap ISMP recommended local improvements in lowland areas, such as regrading the channel bottom to remove high spots, enlarging channels, and raising banks to target the areas of greatest flooding concern and to reduce the chance and extent of flooding.

Areas of the recommended conveyance upgrade can be found on the Stage 3 - Open House Poster at  Fishtrap Creek - Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP) | Let's Talk Abbotsford. More information will be available in the Final Report of Fishtrap ISMP after Council adoption in the spring of 2026. Please continue to follow the ISMP project.

Thank you for following the Fishtrap Creek Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP) project on Let's Talk Abbotsford and contacting the City with your questions. We understand your concerns about the flooding impacting your property.

The City is aware of localized flooding in some areas of the Fishtrap Creek watershed. If you can send your address to my email, we will take a closer look at the area and provide you with site specific information.

On the watershed level, the draft ISMP recommended mitigation strategies dealing with the issues of flooding, erosion, and sedimentation as well as water quality and environmental enhancement opportunities, including:

• upgrade conveyance capacities of storm sewers and culverts (a number of projects are in design stage along with Highway 1 widening program and on Livingstone Avenue);
• improve detention facilities;
• enlarge lowland channels to convey 10-year flow;
• remove sediment from Fishtrap detention ponds & sediment traps (in design stage now);
• stabilize erosion sites;
• manage beaver dams and channel vegetation;
• environmental restoration and enhancement;
• maximize rainwater infiltration to the ground; and
• continue to construct detention facilities to reduce the peak flow to downstream drainage systems.

The total cost of the overall program is about $64M in 25 years. The recommended projects will be prioritized along with recommended programs in other watersheds within the city during the upcoming Master Plan.

Thank you for following the Fishtrap Creek Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP) on Let's Talk Abbotsford and contacting the City with your questions.

The City has initiated significant flood mitigation projects in the Fishtrap Creek watershed based on the recommendations of the draft ISMP of Fishtrap Creek.

One of the major projects is the Fishtrap Detention Ponds Sediment Removal. The project will remove approximately 52,000 m³ of accumulated sediments from three detention ponds – Fishtrap (45,700 m³), Gardner (1,700 m³), and Ponderosa (4,600 m³), as well as associated channels to increase capacity and lower water levels.

The project is at the design stage followed by environmental approval and permitting stages, with work planned during the Fisheries windows in the next two years, subject to environmental approvals.

The draft ISMP recommended immediate work, 5-year and 25-year plan projects at a total cost of $64 M, aimed at reducing flood risk, improving conveyance systems, stabilizing banks to reduce future sediment load, and improving low summer baseflow.

The recommended improvement projects will be prioritized with the programs recommended by other ISMPs / drainage studies within the city during the upcoming Drainage Master Plan update.

 

 

Thank you for following the Fishtrap Creek Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP) on Let's Talk Abbotsford and spend time to provide your suggestions to the City.

The City’s Development Bylaw requires developments and redevelopments to control rainwater volume and peak flow on development sites.

Private developments/ redevelopments are required to provide a rainwater management plan, based on the City’s Development Bylaw No. 3260-2022. It includes runoff volume reduction via onsite source controls, such as infiltration facilities, bio-swales and raingardens, absorbent soil, pervious pavements, green roofs, etc. It also requires peak flow reduction through onsite detention systems to reduce the chance and extent of flooding. 

Permeable paving is a good low impact development technique. The idea of the ISMP is to set the criteria for development / redevelopment and let the owner/developer decide which stormwater techniques to use to meet the criteria. Pervious paving would help to meet the volumetric capture criterion and the peak flow attenuation criteria.

City’s Road Project - Your suggestions on permeable paving as one of the options will be shared with the City’s transportation team for their considerations in green road design as recommended by the draft ISMP.

Thank you for following the Fishtrap Creek Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP) on Let's Talk Abbotsford and for taking the time to send us your questions. The City’s Parks Operations department provided the following response: 

Abbotsford’s Urban Forestry section plants a variety of species, including hundreds of conifers each year. Species are chosen based on micro-site conditions, ecosystem function and other desired outcomes such as rates of canopy closure and biological diversity.

In BC’s natural ecosystems, forests are dynamic, cyclical ecosystems which evolve through a process called “seral progression”, whereby, following a stand level disturbance, such as wildfire or anthropogenic activities, the first species to recolonize the site are termed “pioneer species”.  This group includes grass, herbaceous plants, shrubs and deciduous trees. These “set the stage” for the secondary and climax species such as our majestic conifers, which you correctly noted once dominated our landscapes. 

The pioneers pull nitrogen from the air and lock it into the soil for use by other plants, they sequester carbon in their tissues and then infuse the forest floor with the nutrients from those tissues when their leaves and “bodies” fall to the ground and begin the process of decomposition. They provide shade, moderate micro-climate and rapidly add to the structural and biological diversity of the young, regenerating forest ecosystem.

With regards to site “disturbances”, riparian areas (areas of land under direct influence of nearby water) are known to be more dynamic areas where disturbances occur more frequently than in upland areas. This is due to the ability of water to erode and destabilize soils and kill plants by its movement and by flooding. These are some of the reasons we often see a larger component of shorter lived, deciduous species near water courses. The banks of the Fraser River are a good example of this.

In addition to the natural processes that guide our plantings, we also factor in plant availability, hardiness, ability to compete against non-native invasive plants, visual aesthetics and rate of growth.  We then employ our maintenance program to clear forest detritus (organic debris) from our paths and infrastructure.

I hope this provides some better insights into the logic of our species selections.

Please contact Shawn Gurney, Manager, Urban Forestry and Trails Operations at: sgurney@abbotsford.ca should you have further questions.
 

Thank you for following the Fishtrap Creek Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP) on Let's Talk Abbotsford and caring about the watershed health of Fishtrap Creek.

From drainage perspectives, the City has been maintaining and improving summer baseflow in watercourses through recharging of aquifers with rainwater. 

The draft ISMP recommends to continue the implementation of onsite source controls to infiltrate rainwater back to the ground via infiltration trenches, bio-swales and raingardens, pervious pavement, and absorbent soils within the Fishtrap Creek watershed. 

The City also has mitigation wells for the Fishtrap Creek watershed as part of the Environmental Assessment Certificate conditions for the operation of our Bevan Wells. A mitigation well will be used to supplement creeks with extracted groundwater in response to certain hydrological and seasonal triggers.

We appreciate your suggestions, and the City will continue to explore innovative and cost-effective ways to improve creek summer baseflow. 

Thank you for following the Fishtrap Creek Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP) on Let's Talk Abbotsford and caring about the watershed health of Fishtrap Creek.

From drainage perspectives, the City has been maintaining and improving summer baseflow in watercourses through recharging of aquifers with rainwater. 

The draft ISMP recommends to continue the implementation of onsite source controls to infiltrate rainwater back to the ground via infiltration trenches, bio-swales and raingardens, pervious pavement, and absorbent soils within the Fishtrap Creek watershed. 

The City also has mitigation wells for the Fishtrap Creek watershed as part of the Environmental Assessment Certificate conditions for the operation of our Bevan Wells. A mitigation well will be used to supplement creeks with extracted groundwater in response to certain hydrological and seasonal triggers.

We appreciate your suggestions, and the City will continue to explore innovative and cost-effective ways to improve creek summer baseflow. 

Thank you for providing the information. Your information has been forwarded to the engineering consultant to incorporate into the technical analysis for exploring options. When the technical analysis is completed, mitigation options will be developed followed by assessing mitigation alternatives, public inputs, developing strategies, plan and report. The project is expected to be completed by Winter 2020/2021. Once the Final Report is adopted by Council, recommendations from the ISMP will be reviewed against other priorityitems identified in Drainage Master Plan for implementation.

These are great questions. In addition to rainwater detention for peak flow reduction, City of Abbotsford strongly encourages onsite source controls with innovative stormwater management approaches to reduce runoff volume, improve water quality, and to promote groundwater recharge, as outlined in the Development Bylaw, (Bylaw No. 2070-2011).

The City has initiated various studies for rainwater management, and completed a City-wide Drainage Master Plan (DMP) and three Integrated Stormwater Management Plans (ISMP) for Marshall, Downes and Clayburn watersheds. An ISMP for Willband Creek is in Stage 3 process and seeking public input in the form of an online survey. The ISMPs and DMP recommended onsite source controls including roof water infiltration into the ground via infiltration trenches and rock pits, roof leaders to rain barrels for reuse, bio-swales and rain gardens for treating runoff from paved surfaces (driveways and patios), pervious pavement for road runoff infiltration, absorbent soil in all pervious areas, and green roof for capture runoff, etc. These recommendations have been incorporated into drainage requirements through development application approval process. As incentives, the areas that drain to infiltration facilities could be deducted from detention storage volume calculations to encourage infiltration. For developments that provide rainwater infiltration of the entire site for 1 in 100-year events without a service connection, the Development Cost Charges for drainage could be waived.

Currently, the City is in the process updating the Subdivision Development Bylaw to include recommendations from the past ISMPs and Master Plan.  The review will also look at best practices of rainwater management and green infrastructures implemented in other municipalities and seek public input whether the green approaches could be made amendatory to guide future developments and redevelopments.

The Drainage Master Plan completed in 2018 also recommended a Stormwater Fee and Charges Feasibility Study, which would further explore any additional incentives to encourage developers reducing runoff leaving development sites and property owners harvesting/ retrofitting rainwater on already developed sites, to further reduce costs of managing the stormwater system.

Currently, the Fishtrap Creek ISMP is in the Background Review and Date Assessment stage. By incorporating climate change factor, the ISMP will develop rainwater management strategies to achieve the goals of reducing runoff volume and peak flow, slowing down erosion process, reducing chance of flooding, and enhancing the environment along with other objectives.

Please stay tuned for the next update.

Thank you for providing your input, and your suggestion will be forwarded to the ISMP team to further explore any options of daylighting streams.

The City of Abbotsford does not have a combined sewer system, which means that rain water and sanitary sewer are two separate systems. In general, runoff generated from roof areas and paved surfaces is either infiltrated into the ground or released slowly via detention, to downstream drainage pipes/ channels and eventually to watercourses after pre-treatment. Rainwater does not drain to the wastewater treatment plant or to the water treatment plant.

The integrated storm water management plans identify opportunities to improve urban drainage interface with the natural environment. This may include infiltrating drainage water back into the aquifer to provide base flows to creeks and streams and reducing peak flows from piped systems with engineered detention systems.  Other opportunities may also include removing underground piping and daylighting which is essentially recreating a drainage path in green areas like parks and natural open spaces. Daylighting sometimes is not practical in the middle of historic downtown because the area is fully developed with buildings, streets, sidewalks and other features.

We will update this website with analysis and evaluation results at the end of Phase 2.