The Okanagan Basin Water Board has hired a manager to prioritize some of the most threatened wetland areas and to protect and enhance them. Jillian Tamblyn has been retain to steer the project. She hopes to improve six wetland complexes in the Okanagan and Similkameen by 2016.

Hundreds of ponds, marshes and other wetlands remain on a valley bottom that used to host thousands.

Developers and farmers have filled in many to make way for construction and orchards. Others have dried up since 1998 because the water table has dropped.

The water board launched a $65,000 project last year to map all the ponds in the Valley and to collect opinions on which wetlands are worth saving. After months of collecting data, mapping Okanagan wetlands and holding open houses, the board is moving to the next phase — hands-on wetland restoration and rehabilitation. Environment Canada announced Friday it’s granting $50,000 to the water board to support the two-year project.

The project has led to new fencing around McLachlan Lake — a five-hectare wetland area on Crown land outside Peachland — to keep out cattle and vehicles. Tamblyn plans to focus on six other areas: one around Princeton, one in the Vernon area, two in the Kelowna area and two in the South Okanagan.

“It might be planting, restoring some species. It might be doing some work to regulate water flow coming in,” Tamblyn said. “Wetlands are natural cleaners of water. They slow down water flow. The plants will actually absorb . . . different toxins and chemicals, which cleans the water.”