Readers write - Okanagan Water (with permission of the writer).

Letter to: The Editor, Kelowna Capital News

Dear Sir,

Okanagan Water

Writing about water is not always newsworthy, and for some of us it can be just plain boring. That is, unless there comes a perception that too much or too little water is available. Water is vital for our existence, and becomes most valued when we don’t get enough. Our interests can swing from total indifference to acute concern in no time at all. Such is the nature of our natural bond with water.

In this arid Okanagan Valley with our rapidly increasing population, water is a particularly precious and a vulnerable resource. High summer temperatures cause high water evaporation losses, and we to have to do a lot of irrigating. We have ever-greater demands on water from additional development growth. Also, it is unfortunate that management of water in the Okanagan Basin remains the subject of many disparate (and often conflicting) demands. Too often this has been made more difficult by fragmentation of interests and a lack of clear lines of proper responsibility at many levels. Water supplies in our arid Okanagan remain particularly sensitive to unresolved issues about water governance and management.

On March 28, 2010 I read the articles in this paper written by Judie Steeves, about Phase 2 of the Okanagan Water Supply And Demand Project. That project is an important link in the long chain of events about "water" in the Okanagan. This is a positive move for Okanagan water, but more is needed to effectively deal with many other concerns. It is hoped that the eventual provision of Phase 3 of that Water Supply And Demand Project may go some further way on this. To find out more, go to the web-site at

http://www.obwb.ca/fileadmin/docs/100326_key_findings.pdf

At this time, does it really grab your attention that water in Okanagan Lake is at a low level, and there are concerns about sufficient water supply being available to meet our demands over this summer? Will lawn turf suppliers still be doing a brisk business in our valley after this summer? Should Westbank Irrigation District still be poised to allocate 150 ML per year of our municipal drinking water to Crystal Mountain Resort, so that a developer may proceed with a questionable golf course and associated proposals? Can our valley afford all that big development still to go ahead in the dry hills near Pincushion Mountain above Peachland? Why are there still some serviced Okanagan communities without any proper water metering? Etc. Etc.

I add five general thoughts:

1. Radical legislative change is required by the province to properly deal with deficiencies that exist in managing and governing water, within this province generally, and in the Okanagan Basin in particular.
2. Local leaders continue to have a difficult time acknowledging that limitations of water availability will create an eventual development ceiling for the Okanagan.
3. In the Okanagan there has got to be a complete integration of water servicing capacity with land-use planning.
4. The prospects of greater average temperatures resulting from climate change are expected to increase local high water evaporation losses even further.
5. The Okanagan’s main lakes (and Okanagan Lake in particular) act as both a primary water source and also as a drainage sink for most of the population in this valley. The combined longer-term effect will be conducive to a gradual degradation of water quality in the main lakes of our valley.

We all have to be a much more concerned about Okanagan water. We are all being affected.

John Huby

3573 Glen Eagles Drive,

West Kelowna, BC V4T 2L5

Telephone 250 - 768 - 0421

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