Panel
Anna Warwick Sears – Executive Director – Okanagan Basin Water Board – Kelowna
Mark Woods – Community Services Manager – RDOS – Penticton
Shaun Reimer – Section Head – FLNRO (Forest, Land, Natural Resource Operations) – Public Safety and Protection – Penticton
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About 70 residents of the South Okanagan gathered Wednesday at Oliver’s Community Hall to talk about fire, floods and water problems affecting them in 2017. The “Town Hall” meeting organized by RDOS Area C Director Terry Schafer and staff at the Regional District office.
Basically the discussion centered on two themes:
Too much water off the Okanagan watershed mountains this spring, a rising Okanagan Lake, and the resulting flooding of much land south of Penticton
and
The aftermath of the Oliver (Kobau) fire of 2015 and creeks swelling presenting problems for land owners in the Road Six to Rd 11 area.
Both of the above coupled with complaints about a lack of communication and long range planning.
Bill Koenig – lives and works at the bottom of the Rd 6 area and talked to the issue of Reed Creek (heavy flow) filling the basin with water and the ineffective drainage system. Koenig says the area needs a Drainage Management System.
These thoughts echoed by Gordon Kirby of the Rd 9 area who wrote to the RDOS and the government without much communication thereafter. Kirby suggested that outflows from Reed Creek and Tinhorn Creeks need to be channeled and exit on the south side of the Road Nine Bridge.
Upstream – Winery Owner Bill Eggert stated that the communication about a rising creek was absent this spring. “When there is a problem that might affect me – I expect someone to phone me or knock on my door”.
To the west and north of Eggert, homeowner Bruce Hamilton said there was a lot of water coming off the hills that threatened his property. “More must be done to clean out the creeks of debris and sediment”.
Gary Cook told the meeting it has never been as bad (high water) in the Park Rill area on Island Way – north of Oliver. Cook suggested the river channel needs to be dredged to remove sediment and allow a freer flow of water. He asked if the ORRI river salmon enhancement project was part of the high water problem.
Owners of Vaseux Lake properties were concerned about the high levels of the lake for the last few years and the erosion of the land in front of their homes.
One resident of Osoyoos talked to the issue of how high the water was in the lake and another resident of Rd 22 expressed concerns that the height of that lake has on his low lying grazing land.
Anna Warwick Sears talked to the fact that a Osoyoos Lake water control meeting will be held shortly and invited all those concerned to attend. The height of the lake is largely controlled by the Zosel Dam in Oroville and depends on the flow of the Similkameen River which is not controlled by dams.
Shaun Reimer made a lengthy presentation on water flow models that led to a problem with draining Okanagan Lake. Reimer said that 2017 was an unusual year not following any models in a 100 year period. ” I have been in the area since 1995 and never have I seen this level of outflow.” “More water in one week than some years in the 20’s.
Reimer says events like this because of climate change are ” Not if BUT when” and modelling helps those that have their hands on the dam gates.
Sears backed that up with predictions of more dry drought year, more wet years, and less regular (normative) years – extremes becoming the norm so that all efforts now going into preparation for both of these situations. The valley governments involved in Flood Mapping and looking for grant opportunities to fund more studies.
Reimer told the meeting that FLNRO does not have the funds for a lot of drainage studies and urged the Regional District to look into the problems in the Testalinda, Hester, Tinhorn, Reed Creek area.