Rising water history lesson
Editor: I do not live on Okanagan Lake, so I am not vitally concerned about the lake level.
Years ago, I did live on Osoyoos Lake for many years. I was on the ski patrol, so I was well aware of the snow pack in the hills and mountains. It seemed that whenever we had a high snowpack, our lawns and basement would get flooded. One year I decided to get involved.
I visited the Zozel Dam in Oroville, Wash. The gates were closed. I asked the local newspaper editor to write an article about the high snowpack and the high lake level. I phoned the Minister of the Environment in Victoria to see if she could help us in some way. She asked me to monitor the gates to see if they were opened. I gladly volunteered.
Soon after, all the gates were opened and the lake level dropped. The flood was averted that year.
I learned that there was a committee of three Canadians and three Americans.They met in November and made their lake level decisions. This was before the snow started to fall.
I firmly believe our dangerous lake level could have been averted. I believe there were many early indicators that the lake should have been lowered accordingly.
I hope this this information will help in the future. Ron Hamel, Kelowna
Two years ago, Prime Minister Trudeau eloquently announced “We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system,” and “We will make every vote count.”
Then he betrayed us when he abandoned it on Feb. 1.
I know you do your best to represent the constituents of your riding. We both know that the majority of Canadians want a fair electoral system, as does the majority of your constituents, and it appears you do as well. After all, you ran on electoral reform, and Trudeau's flip-flop was probably as much a surprise for you as it was for all of us.
It is clear that electoral reform in Canada has deep roots and it is not going away. As a Liberal MP, you have the opportunity to not only keep your word to your constituents, but to also renew and improve our democracy. It is time.
Will you please vote to support the ERRE committee report and to uphold this central election promise? Ann Remnant, Nelson
The rain leaches thru this multiple of layers of human discards and end up at the bottom of the pile. By the time the water gets to the bottom, it will be an amazing chemical soup that is impossible to treat or neutralize or contain.
City officials have figured 100 years more of building this “bomb” of chemical soups. We know that water in the ground migrates to the lowest level possible without hitting stone or clay barriers, so we can expect this soup to go into the ground water first then eventually migrate to Okanagan Lake and then be available for our new drinking water.
We have been mandated by the bright people in Ottawa to use fluorescent bulbs because they are more cheaper to use—less electricity consumption. Was there information and education for the public to how to dispose of these bulbs? No, not really. These fluorescent bulbs have mercury in them to allow for the light to be produced. I am sure 80 per cent end up at the landfill in ordinary day-to-day garbage. That is just one example of contamination beyond our eyes.
What is the answer? Better inspection, control of what enters, and maybe a form of separation and control of contaminants. Education of the public and staff too would help. Dumping and conglomeration of our waste should remind us of the 9,000 tonnes of road salt that is used in Kelowna each year. Well, we can’t see it, so it must be gone and all is rosy again. You cannot see what is inside the dump, or the salt in the soil and ground water, but we need to recognize this or or future generations will not be able to live in this area due to gross contamination.
Are there plans in the works for collection of the ‘soup’ and how does the city plan to treat the contaminants?
Compare this dump to the problems the U.S. has at the Hanford nuclear waste dump: They have so much that they know not what to do with it — and there are many more toxic dumps across the country.
We have our own in Yellowknife with the arsenic that was mined there, along with the gold — left for us taxpayers to pay to clean up. We can and must change and do better.
Jorgen Hansen, Kelowna