Mill Creek protection is much-needed

With all the sadness and anger from the mosque shooting in Christchurch, a significant funding announcement here in the Okanagan was lost in the chaos.

Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale visited Kelowna, Friday, bringing with him $22 million of federal funding for the Mill Creek Flood Protection Plan.

This is welcome news. But, even in a time of local celebration, Goodale and Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran began a press conference on a solemn note, offering condolences to New Zealand and the Muslim community.

Mission Creek is Kelowna’s most volatile creek flowing into Okanagan Lake, starting in the mountains then moving through Ellison, past UBC Okanagan and Kelowna International Airport, through industrial lands, along Highway 97 (including the Okanagan Rail Trail), then the Parkinson recreation’s playing fields and the residential area between the highway and Springfield Road, before emptying into the lake, south of the Bennett bridge.

Although tourism operators prefer to forget about it, we all remember the catastrophic past two springs with highwater levels on Okanagan Lake. Sandbag hauling took over from triathlon as the valley’s most popular sport.

The situation, Basran declares, is due to climate change.

How ironic it was that more than 300 high school students were skipping school at the time of the announcement — not to get a jump start on spring break, but instead to protest global warming.

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The Kelowna Rockets are off to Kamloops tonight for a playin game against the Blazers. It’s all or nothing. The winners advance to the playoffs to face Victoria, the losers get out their golf clubs.

Instead of going to all that trouble, why not get together and randomly pull a name out of the hat to determine which team wins. That’s how they determined the Peachland mayoral race.