By Lexi McFarlane, Times Chronicle
The Town of Oliver is looking to chart a new and possibly unique course when it comes to determining drought conditions by adding additional early warning indicators to the current groundwater levels as a formal drought stage trigger.
Council received a presentation on this matter at the March 16 Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting from Dr. Nelson Jatel, a Water Stewardship Director with the Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB). The OBWB provided the guidance that influenced the Town’s previous Drought Management Plan, created in 2017.
Updates have been made to the plan since then, but mostly with a focus on ensuring it remains effective. In recent years, that effectiveness has pertained to the more severe nature of drought seasons.
The 2024 update, for example, addressed irrigation and domestic water projections, surface water triggers, and the alignment of drought stages between municipal and Provincial levels of government.
The March 16 presentation follows two prior presentations from Town Staff on the topic. Staff initially brought forth a draft of a new plan at the March 10 COW where the preference to have drought triggers based solely off of the domestic water source levels was indicated by Council. A second presentation, taking these recommendations into account, came to the October 27 COW meeting.
Presenting to Council, Jatel gave more insight into why a regional approach to drought management was chosen in 2017, as well as the risks and mitigations of taking a more municipal approach to drought management.
Jatel began by noting that using groundwater as the biggest indication of drought, things like pumping capacity, infrastructure risk, and immediate supply can be taken into account, and are easier to communicate. However, he said, groundwater alone is hard to rely on.
“Groundwater responds after drought conditions have already developed,” Jatel explained. “Declines often reflect previous seasons’ cumulative stress and delayed recharge failure.”
Since Oliver is further downstream than other municipalities from sources like Skaha Lake, reacting to fluctuations in groundwater levels would be quite reactionary, and as such would not do the best job of drought management. As well, the impacts of drought would be more significant, he added.
“You would have fewer options available to you, the restrictions would be steeper, and the public response may be more disruptive.”
Jatel recommended a hybrid approach to drought management for Oliver, which would still primarily focus on the groundwater supply available, while using sources upstream as guidance for where water levels could be in the near-future.
“This idea of having groundwater levels as a formal drought stage trigger, but to be able to include some of these contextual pieces that we feel can be useful. Things like lake levels, snowpack, and provincial status – these really do provide an early warning, and support advisory inputs, Jatel said.
“It allows for local control, improves preparedness, and can reduce emergency escalation risks.”
A lot of feedback was offered by the COW, in the form of both questions and comments. Councillor Terry Schafer wondered about the possibility of legislation for fields such as data centres.
“Data centres, if you follow them, use extraordinarily high water volumes,” Schafer said. “This is the northern tip of the Sonora Desert… We’re not known for having an abundance of water except for in our lakes, and our aquifers are under constant pressure.”
Jatel cautioned about singling out any one source of water consumption.
“There’s a number of things that take significant amounts of water. If Council chooses to use water as a growth limiting factor for any one sector in the economy, you’ll want to do it carefully,” he cautioned.
Water Councillor Bhupinder Dhaliwal asked if Oliver would be able to restrict water flow downstream, or if there were any “obligations” with communities south of the border with the US that would prevent them from doing so.
“To delay drought stages by holding back water that flows to the south; do we have an obligation to Washington (State) and Oregon, or can we hold that back, (and) recharge everything in our valley so that we can delay these drought stages from happening?” Dhaliwal asked.
The short answer he said was no; there is no requirement for Okanagan water to go into the US but the levels in Osoyoos Lake are strictly managed through the International Joint Commission between the US and Canada.
Normally, Osoyoos Lake levels are kept between 911.5 ft (277.83 m) and 912 ft (277.98 m) from May 1 to September 15 in non-drought years. These levels have increasingly been adjusted as drought becomes more common as a result of climate change.
As of Feb. 15, the Okanagan Basin is averaging 78 per cent of normal snow accumulation for this time of the year, according to the province’s River Forecast Centre. This has led to a lake level of 909.12 feet, the lowest on record according to the International Osoyoos Lake Board of Control.
The board implements the provisions of the International Joint Commission (IJC) relative to the operation of the Zosel Dam, located in Washington State, 2.7 km south of the bottom end of Osoyoos Lake.
Councillor David Mattes emphasized just how important updating the Drought Management Plan would be, given that the previous plan caused more “stress” in implementing.
“We had many, many years of going on water restrictions because Okanagan Lake was lower than a particular number,” Mattes explained. “We don’t use the surface water except for agriculture. So we would get complaints from people… and the question would be ‘why?’, and the answer was that Okanagan Lake is lower than it should be. Very difficult to defend that.”
However, as Councillor Aimee Grice noted after calling Dhaliwal’s query “an interesting can of worms” to open, she said the presentation provided really showed that a hybrid approach may be the way for the Town of Oliver to go.
“We should be using all of the information that is available for us to be making informed decisions,” Grice said. “It feels like the ‘groundwater only’ approach, upon reflection, seems a little bit reactive, and something we’d be doing when our infrastructure is already under stress.”
Councillor Petra Veintimilla sought comment from Jatel about how river levels, which are connected to the aquifers in the area, can’t go below a certain level.
“Recharge is incredibly critical (to aquifer well-being),” Jatel stated. “This idea of integrating surface water management into the recharge framework is kind of where you would want to go.”
Water Councillor Rick Machial agreed that Oliver’s situation is a “unique” one given the fisheries aspect.
“Because of the fishery issue, and the decisions (made) up north; I can see how you have to make decisions for way into the future, because… the fisheries are going to trump everything, and that’s just the way it’s going to stay. So we have to make decisions based on what those (decisions) are.”
Council voted to refer the plan back to staff for additional information to be discussed at a future COW meeting.
