Michael Smith Park Stormwater Management

Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood

Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood

Wesbrook Place contains soils that do not naturally drain well. This is due to the land's natural slope towards the southwest causing surface water to flow in that direction and over the Point Grey cliffs. With an average annual rainfall of approximately 1200mm, managing the recycle, reuse, and retention of rainfall are important factors to consider in the development of this new neighbourhood. Wesbrook Place's contemporary and new livable community design leads to higher amounts of impervious area. To tackle higher rates of rainwater flow, building and residences on Wesbrook Place has their own pipe systems that lead straight to Booming Ground Creek and also have onsite detention of rainwater through underground cisterns. On the west end of Wesbrook Place, rainwater drains into a large cistern located under the baseball field. From there, the rainwater will slowly be released at controlled rates to the detention pond near TRIUMF. On the east end of Wesbrook Place, rainwater is collected off of the rooftops of surrounding residences and put into open channels of running water. These channels run along Village Lane and Khorana Park, and eventually leads to Michael Smith Park, where a retention pond has been developed to decrease and slow down rates of water release into Booming Ground Creek and Point Grey cliffs.

UBC Stormwater Management

UBC Stormwater Management addresses many concerns and issues that arise with concentrated water and stormwater design methods. One of the goals are to determine safe methods of conveyance of rainfall from its landing point to its journey to the ocean. In Wesbrook Place, this is large accomplished through networks of gravity inlets, pipes, overland flow routes, and open channels to outfalls into the Georgia Strait and the mount of the Fraser River. UBC Stormwater Management aims to design systems that have rainwater naturally infiltrate into the ground and percolate to the Point Grey aquifer because concentrated stormwater may cause flooding, erosion, and property and environmental damages. A new detention strategy was created to address and manage new issues that could arise from higher impervious surface area. This new strategy aims to maintain flows entering Booming Ground Creek to be at base levels, and only with large storm flows are rainwater being directed to the new outfall in Wesbrook Place near the lookout on Marine Drive. This new detention strategy ensures systems that are design to empty following a storm to do so within 72 hours. Not only that, the strategy encourages robust predator population in areas that remain wet and limit the spread of emergent vegetation by establishing deep-water zones. UBC Stormwater Management has new design levels with storm sewers that should accommodate 10-year (minor) storm peaks, following with routing for 100-year (major) storm levels.

Michael Smith Park Stormwater Management

Michael Smith Park is Wesbrook Place's latest stormwater management feature. The park contains open running water channels that start at Village Lane, runs along Khorana Park, and drains into Michael Smith Pond. The main objective of Michael Smith Park stormwater management is to mimic predevelopment release rates and flows of water to Booming Ground Creek and over the Point Grey cliffs. To help reduce the erosion occurring at the Point Grey cliffs, Michael Smith Pond acts as a retention system to hold rainwater and allow it slowly and naturally percolate into the lower aquifer. This helps decrease and control the amount of water entering Booming Ground Creek and over the Point Grey cliffs. Wesbrook Place is able to maintain the ecological integrity at Booming Ground Creek as well as promote and help sustain fish habitats that are located at the waterfalls and small ponding areas present there. Furthermore, Michael Smith Park creates an open space amenity for residences and the UBC community to enjoy and encourage future education plans that teach of sustainable water practices and strategies. Michael Smith Park and its running water channels obtains its stormwater largely from rooftops of surrounding residences and rainwater retained from landscape vegetation, with a small portion of the rainwater coming from Wesbrook Mall. Rainwater that falls directly onto the sidewalks do not enter Michael Smith Pond as that water heads straight into the sewer system and flows to Booming Ground Creek. Its modern, state-of-the art design plans allow sensors within the pond to be able to detect levels of high, normal, and low levels of rainwater retained in the pond. During high levels of water detected by the sensors, rainwater held in the pond will be slowly released to the detention pond at TRIUMF. Through the detention pond, a controlled rate of water will drain to Booming Ground Creek through pipes and natural channels. During dry seasons with less rainwater to fill the open channels and the pond, a diversion pipe at Wesbrook Mall will direct its rainwater to the system allowing for running open channels of rainwater year round. Lastly, during normal levels of rainfall, the stormwater retained at Michael Smith Pond will get recirculated and recycled back up to the start at Village Lane and Khorana Park.

Protection of Booming Ground Creek

At Booming Ground Creek, water that is supplied for the waterfalls and small ponding areas are directed from Pacific Spirit Park and Wesbrook Place. These waterfalls and ponding areas are known to provide habitats for fish communities which are dependent upon having year round water flows. Much of the drier months lead to stormwater and stormwater runoff providing most of the water found at Booming Ground Creek. It is critical that stormwater management systems be implemented and present to direct rainwater that is of high quality and low velocity to Booming Ground Creek to maintain its habitat value and ecological integrity.