Sumas Prairie Stands on Unstable Ground

By Peter J. Merrick, TEP® and Adrian C. Spitters, CFP®, co-authors of the international bestseller It Starts With Gold™ and the forthcoming book Killing Crypto™ 

This is Part 2 of a three-part series on the future of Sumas Prairie. Part 1, “Sumas Prairie: A Fight for Farmland, Legacy, and Food Security,” explored the land’s history and the foundations laid by earlier generations. This second installment examines the emerging pressures that began reshaping the region long before the public recognized the pattern. It explains how climate models, reconciliation frameworks, engineering limits, environmental objectives, and agricultural realities now collide inside a region that feeds the province.

This article is presented as an opinion intended to inform and invite dialogue.

Farmers in Sumas Prairie are sensing changes they cannot ignore. They see water behaving differently. They see policies that move faster than engineering. They see ministries working toward separate objectives that rarely align. They see the land responding to pressures created by structures that no longer speak the same language.

The shift is not emotional. It is structural. It is legal. It is systemic.

People watching the debate about restoring Sumas Lake often assume the discussion is limited to climate adaptation or reconciliation. The truth is far larger. The region now sits at the intersection of competing systems that shape the land, water, economy, agriculture, and identity of Sumas Prairie.

Sumas Prairie is no longer shaped by a single force. It is shaped by the collision of systems that were never designed to function together. This conflict is the central theme of this trilogy. It explains the past, defines the present, and signals what may come next if the governing systems affecting Sumas Prairie do not correct their course.

A reclaimed lakebed is only stable when all systems supporting it move in the same direction. Sumas Prairie no longer meets that condition.

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Before Sumas Prairie produced food for a growing province, it was Semá:th Xó:tsa, a shallow lake that sustained the Sumas First Nation and shaped the ecological character of the region. When the lake was drained between 1920 and 1924, the transformation required engineering that reshaped land, redirected rivers, and controlled flows that once spread freely across the valley.

For nearly a century, that system held.

But water carries memory. It follows the patterns carved by centuries, not the plans of modern governments. In 2021, an atmospheric river overwhelmed the drainage network. Dikes failed. Pumps drowned. Roads disappeared. The flood followed the exact footprint of the former lake. The water returned because governing systems surrounding Sumas Prairie failed to outpace mounting pressures.

The 2021 event was not an anomaly. It was a warning. It signalled a shift in the relationship between the land and the systems meant to protect it.

The land remembers the lake. Institutions do not remember the lessons that kept the lake from returning. This growing gap between the memory of the land and the memory of the governance systems responsible for protecting it is the tension that now defines Sumas Prairie.

Farmers rebuilt because they had no choice. They restored their land with urgency while ministries debated frameworks and committees studied possibilities. Their work stabilized the valley for a time. Yet the underlying pressures continued to grow.

In 2024, a research team at the University of British Columbia proposed restoring Sumas Lake through a large-scale buyout program and ecological transformation. Their analysis framed the idea through climate adaptation, reconciliation values, and ecological renewal. It estimated billions in costs, argued for ecological benefits, and suggested that returning the land to water would mitigate future flood damage.

The proposal did not reflect a single ideological movement. It represented a growing belief that nature-based solutions could be used to address historical harm, environmental risk, and climate pressures simultaneously.

Yet these goals collided with a reality that planners often overlook. The land beneath the former lake is the backbone of British Columbia’s food system. It supports dairy production, poultry, vegetables, berries, feed crops, and vital supply chains that keep the province stable.

Destroying farmland is not restoration. It is erasure.

The City of Abbotsford commissioned Kerr Wood Leidal Associates Ltd. to evaluate the restoration concept. Their assessment challenged the idea directly. They warned that the proposed lake restoration:

• underestimated costs
• ignored agricultural economic loss
• lacked reliable hydrological modelling
• conflicted with ongoing flood mitigation planning
• offered no credible long-term stability

Engineering warnings are not aspirational. They describe physical limits that do not adjust to policy timelines.

Their conclusion reflected what many already understood. A lake could be restored on paper, but the real-world impacts would destabilize an entire region.

Meanwhile, the province continued working on the Sumas River Watershed Flood Mitigation Planning Initiative, which also highlighted the complexity of any long-term water strategy for the region.

Even with these warnings, the restoration idea remained alive. It circulated through academic discussions, environmental conversations, and reconciliation pathways. Each system amplified the idea without reconciling it with agricultural and engineering limits.

This is how structural drift begins.

What makes this moment different is that these systems are now colliding faster than infrastructure can adapt.

What is happening in Sumas Prairie is not the result of a single decision. It is the outcome of many systems that were never designed to function together. The province now operates inside overlapping frameworks that shape land use, flood management, and agricultural planning:

• climate adaptation models
• reconciliation principles
• environmental restoration priorities
• agricultural production needs
• engineering infrastructure limits
• municipal zoning constraints

Each system pulls in a different direction. Each holds moral or practical importance. None have been reconciled into a unified strategy.

Collapse does not begin when water rises. Collapse begins when the systems responsible for preventing disaster lose alignment. The engineered land beneath Sumas Prairie cannot remain stable when the political, administrative, environmental, and agricultural forces surrounding it move without a shared purpose.

This is why decision-making affecting Sumas Prairie moves toward contradictory outcomes. It tries to protect farmland and restore wetlands. It tries to reduce flood risk while reducing engineered infrastructure. It tries to support reconciliation while maintaining agricultural stability. It tries to satisfy environmental objectives while sustaining a food system that depends on infrastructure, the environment often resists.

No province can move in all directions at once.

The outcome on Sumas Prairie will influence more than one region. The Fraser Valley provides food security, economic stability, and agricultural resilience for the entire province. If this region loses farmland or infrastructure capacity, British Columbia loses its ability to feed itself during future disruptions.

In 2019, British Columbia became the first jurisdiction in the world to legislate alignment with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The provincial law, known as the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, requires government to align its statutes with the principles of free, prior, and informed consent.

This framework matters because Sumas Prairie is connected to cultural and ecological history tied to several First Nations. Decisions affecting the land now unfold within a broader governance structure that prioritizes shared authority.

This is not a criticism of the legislation. It is a recognition of its practical impact. When land holds historical, cultural, ecological, economic, and food security importance, governance becomes complex. Decision-making takes longer. Agreements require more negotiation. Competing perspectives must be reconciled.

Yet in a region shaped by hydrology, time is not a luxury.

The challenge is not intent, but alignment between consultation, engineering capacity, and hydrological risk.

Structural blindness emerges when systems become too complex for any single institution to navigate effectively. It forms when:

• goals multiply
• responsibilities overlap
• mandates conflict
• engineering limits are ignored
• agricultural needs are undervalued
• timelines exceed the pace of risk

This blindness explains why ideas that should be impossible become plausible. The suggestion of restoring Sumas Lake does not gain traction because it is viable. It gains traction because the province no longer shares a unified purpose regarding land governance.

A lake cannot return through intention alone. Yet it can return when systems drift far enough to create the conditions for water to reclaim its place.

When institutions move in competing directions, collapse does not begin with disaster. It begins with contradictions that accumulate quietly.

The systems acting on Sumas Prairie now demonstrate this pattern. Climate frameworks promote natural floodplains. Reconciliation frameworks honour historical lake systems. Environmental frameworks encourage wetland restoration. Engineering frameworks warn of limits. Agricultural frameworks demand stability. Municipal frameworks attempt to protect communities.

Each framework sees itself as correct. None acknowledges the cost of the collision.

This is why farmers feel trapped inside decisions they did not make. They see the land responding to institutional drift. They understand that when systems collide, the consequences arrive on farmland first.

Farmers carry responsibilities institutions often overlook. Their livelihoods, families, and futures depend on stability that committees and ministries often assume can wait.

Early signs of strain are already visible across Sumas Prairie. Part 3 will examine whether inaction, not restoration, is now the most credible path for the lake’s return.

The proposal fails because it demands that the land abandon its agricultural identity to satisfy goals that can be accomplished without destroying food production. The major issues include:

1. Uncertain hydrology: A restored lake would behave unpredictably. Soil compaction, development patterns, and altered flow paths make long-term modelling unreliable.
2. Infrastructure limitations: Pumps, dikes, and bypass channels were built for a different landscape. A lake would exceed its capacity.
3. Catastrophic economic impact: Loss of farmland would collapse dairy systems, poultry supply chains, berry production, feed availability, and regional supply networks.
4. Irreplaceable cultural and economic loss: Generational farms cannot be replaced through compensation. Their disappearance erases knowledge, discipline, and local resilience.
5. Reconciliation cannot come through agricultural destruction: Restoring one community should not require eliminating another. Real solutions must honour both.
6. Climate adaptation requires stronger food systems: Reducing agricultural land weakens the province’s ability to handle future shocks.
7. No replacement farmland exists: The Fraser Valley is unique. Nothing else in the province can match its scale or productivity.

These realities make the proposal unworkable. They also reveal deeper issues about how British Columbia now makes decisions.

The governance systems surrounding Sumas Prairie attempt to satisfy every domain. Those systems pursue climate leadership, reconciliation progress, environmental restoration, economic strength, food security, and engineering resilience simultaneously.

No region can solve all problems simultaneously when the solutions contradict one another.

The danger is not that the systems affecting Sumas Prairie are choosing the wrong priorities. The danger is that those systems fail to reconcile priorities at all.

When everything becomes a priority, nothing becomes protected.

Farmers do not have the luxury of theoretical solutions. Their decisions occur on soil, not in committee rooms. They feel the cost of uncertainty before the public recognizes it. They shoulder the burden of policies that begin with good intentions but end in conflicting outcomes.

Farmers understand the land’s reality. They know:

• drainage systems are weakening
• hydrology is shifting
• policy direction is unclear
• ministries are unaligned
• environmental objectives are gaining strength
• agricultural protections are falling behind

They also know that food security does not survive policy confusion.

Collapse rarely begins with dramatic announcements. It begins when:

• infrastructure upgrades stall
• governance frameworks expand faster than engineering
• consultation outpaces construction
• policy goals multiply
• ministries lose coordination
• institutions hesitate to acknowledge risk

The outcome is predictable.

A system built to hold back a lake weakens when the political, legal, environmental, and engineering forces surrounding it no longer share purpose.

Awareness creates responsibility. Responsibility creates action. Action creates resilience.

Sumas Prairie can be protected if governing systems recognize the stakes and restore clarity to decision-making. It can align ministries, accelerate engineering, strengthen farmland protections, and honour reconciliation without sacrificing food security.

Those governing systems can still choose stability. They can still support the people who feed them. But time is narrowing, and the land is already responding to the drift.

Part 3 of this series will examine the present conditions on Sumas Prairie as of early 2026 and explore whether government neglect is creating the conditions for Sumas Lake to return.

The debate surrounding Sumas Prairie exposes a broader reality. When land, infrastructure, and policy frameworks become unstable, individuals and families are forced to think beyond single solutions and toward systems that can endure stress.

In It Starts With Gold™, the authors describe a framework called Owning Assets in Order of Asset Security. It is built around four pillars designed to preserve continuity when political, economic, or institutional systems are tested.

1. Physical gold and precious metals: Tangible assets held outside the financial system that do not rely on policy confidence or institutional solvency. Historically used to preserve purchasing power and act as anchors during monetary, political, and systemic stress.
2. Alternative investments that reduce systemic exposure: Private real estate, private credit, and other non-public assets designed to generate income while limiting dependence on public markets, increasingly shaped by centralized and correlated risk.
3. Private, discretionary portfolio management: Structured oversight by professional managers emphasizing asset segregation, disciplined risk management, and reduced counterparty exposure compared to mass-market financial institutions.
4. Mutual life insurance structures: Capital-preservation vehicles intended to create long-term stability, support tax-efficient growth, and maintain estate continuity across generations.

Each pillar serves a distinct role, but together they form a unified structure. When one system is stressed, the others are designed to hold. The same principle applies to land, food systems, and wealth. Stability is rarely accidental. It is built deliberately, before pressure arrives.

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Stay informed. Stay prepared. Act while choice still exists.

Readers who wish to explore these ideas further can find additional detail in It Starts With Gold™, co-authored by Peter J. Merrick, TEP® and Adrian C. Spitters, CFP®. The book examines how tangible assets, diversified structures, and disciplined planning help preserve control during periods of structural change. Learn more at www.ItStartsWithGold.com.

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1. University of British Columbia. “Researchers Call for Return of Sumas Lake Following Devastating 2021 Floods.” UBC News, 2024
2. University of the Fraser Valley. Sumas Lake: History and 2021 Flood Documentation. UFV Library Research Guides. Accessed December 2025
3. City of Abbotsford. “Engineering Firm Addresses Cost and Prospects of Sumas Lake Return.” City of Abbotsford News Releases, 2024
4. Government of British Columbia. “Sumas River Watershed Flood Mitigation Planning Initiative.” Province of British Columbia. Accessed December 2025
5. FV Current. “Sumas Lake: Costs and Benefits.” FV Current, 2024
6. SPARGEO. “Sumas Lake Reborn: A Tale of Topography.” SPARGEO Blog. Accessed December 2025
7. Salish Current. “Sumas Lake: Once and Future Feature of the Border.” Salish Current, December 19, 2023

This article is presented for general information and discussion purposes only. It reflects the authors’ opinions based on publicly available sources and research available at the time of writing. It is not intended to provide legal, engineering, environmental, agricultural, financial, or policy advice, nor should it be interpreted as advocacy for or against any specific government action, proposal, or outcome.

The issues discussed involve complex interactions between history, land use, infrastructure, environmental policy, and food security. Readers are encouraged to seek appropriate professional or technical guidance and to consult original source materials when forming their own conclusions.

While care has been taken to reference credible public sources, no guarantee is made regarding completeness or future accuracy, as conditions, policies, and interpretations may evolve over time.