Drinking water should not come from creek

Editor: It is heartening to see local media beginning to investigate the growing opposition to Phase 1 of the Kelowna Integrated Water Supply Plan, its flaws and its environmentally unsound nature.

After the initial outlining of the plan, the use of Mission Creek and its fragile ecosystem as the new source of drinking water for Kelowna and more than 100,000 people, has been quietly put aside or left out of the discussion, as people applaud the funding grant and improvements to the quality of water of those who need it.

What is being overlooked is that Phase 1 involves $43 million of infrastructure to be built on the upper reaches of Mission Creek, including holding reservoirs, wells and a water treatment plant, and that the creek’s current water allocation of less that 18 mega litres per day would increase to 40 mega litres per day on average, to supply drinking water to Kelowna.

Then in summer when Kelowna’s drinking water demands go up to 150 mega litres per day due to excessive lawn watering, we will go back to pumping water from Okanagan Lake to avoid virtually draining Mission Creek completely.

This is being proposed not as a backup, not to provide clean water to those who don’t have it, but rather as a cost saving to the city by “utilizing gravity fed water” from the creek for drinking water rather than continuing to pump it out of Okanagan Lake, as we currently do. Either way, the water has to be heavily treated under federal guidelines for drinking water.

As a community, we have struggled to save and restore Mission Creek and the government continues to monitor its health and ability to sustain its iconic Kokanee run, Okanagan Lake rainbow trout and a host of species that make up the fragile ecosystem within our city limits.

All this only to have the city turn around and propose to double the amount of water we take out of it, therefore threatening the ecosystem’s survival, in order for the city to “provide clean drinking water” (see save money on providing clean water) to the majority of Kelownians, most of whom already have a steady, fresh and reliable flow of clean drinking water from the lake. It makes no sense.

You can read all about it in the 137page report on the city’s website, that we as taxpayers paid $220,000 for, which lacks any scientific criteria and uses only two parameters, water quality and cost-effective supply.

The potential for devastating instream flow and temperature problems in Mission Creek, the hugely negative effects on fish and wildlife habitat, the overall impact to the Greenway all merit scarcely a mention in the report and are dismissed as being sufficiently protected by federal laws.

The report also does not take into account the increasing pressures of climate change, current and ongoing struggles of the system to sustain life; nor the inherent cultural, educational and recreational value of Mission Creek to our greater community and therefore its importance to us.

The new Integrated Kelowna Water Supply Plan is not all bad as integrating the water districts to balance out costs to customers, removing the high agricultural irrigation demands from Mission Creek and transferring them onto Okanagan Lake, providing Glenmore and South East Kelowna with consistent water quality, are all good proposals worthy of government grant money and urgent municipal attention.

But any plan for the future of Kelowna’s drinking water supply should be based on supply from an environmentally sound source, such as is already the case with our current source, Okanagan Lake.

It’s where all the valley water ends up anyway, already has a lot of

infrastructure in place, the supply is consistent and plentiful in nature, and currently serves most of Kelowna extremely well.

We should look at giving water back to Mission Creek to allow it to weather the drier months better, while continuing to preserve and protect all our local streams and creeks.

They are the veins and arteries of our valley’s watersheds and we shouldn’t squeeze them further in search of cost savings and reduced budgets at the expense of our dwindling fish and wildlife.

I am encouraged by the many phone calls, messages and words of support that we and our petition continue to receive as it demonstrates the plan to use Mission Creek as

Kelowna’s primary drinking water supply is not in line with Kelowna’s community values, and that we want our city council to continue to devise policy and do planning that includes environmentally sound use of our natural resources; and that acknowledges and values the health of our local environment, our lakes and waterways, parks and green spaces, fish and wildlife, and their vital role in tourism and recreation.

We need to tell the city we don’t want to drink Mission Creek, degrade the Greenway and push Kokanee run to the brink of extirpation. I’m confident that most Kelownians will oppose the idea once they are aware of it and that council will revise this part of the plan and take us back to full time use of Okanagan Lake as a primary drinking water source, while continuing to protect and restore the Mission Creek watershed and ecosystem, now and for generations to come.

Mat Hanson, Okanagan Fisheries Foundation