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South Okanagan Photos

Town scrambling to fill ‘The Ditch’

By ROY WOOD

Town of Oliver engineers, staff and consultants are working flat out to avoid potential devastation to area agriculture, as repairs to the Oliver Water System may take much longer to affect than earlier predicted and irrigation season approaches.

The Gallagher Lake siphon and flume section of the system was breached by a rockslide on January 25. Initial estimates put completion of repairs to the system at about the end of March.

However, rock scaling and blasting work are now estimated to take an additional six to 10 weeks. That means water potentially won’t be in the system in time to supply farms, orchards and vineyards in the town of Oliver, Electoral Area C and the Osoyoos Indian Band.

Mayor Ron Hovanes said in an interview Thursday evening is hopeful a way can be found to at least temporarily get water into the “the ditch” by sometime in early April.

Hovanes said the engineers and staff are looking “at all kinds of options,” including going around the breach and using as it is even though it will leak.

“We’re going to have to find a solution for this growing season. … I’m sure we’ll get through it at the end of the day. (But) it’s going to very costly.”

Hovanes sent a letter to provincial Finance Minister Mike de Jong seeking financial help with the repairs and outlining the potential impact on the South Okanagan of a prolonged lack of water in the system.

The early estimates to repair the siphon and flume were between $400,000 and $500,000. The estimates have now doubled.

“Without being able to get water into the canal for early April, orchard and ground crop farmers will see a loss of trees and crops and vineyard owners will experience loss and stress on vines,” says the letter to de Jong.

Using provincial crop valuations, the town estimates that an irrigation water disruption would cost in the neighborhood $30 million in the first year alone. “The total potential losses from the current crop year failure, replanting and crop recovery delays … total approximately $143 million,” Hovanes said in the letter.