Nicole Hancock
Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony ...

Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.

Indigenous community hosts full moon ceremony to heal Chedoke Creek

Penticton

Scary precipitation stats from Environment Canada

Scary precipitation stats from Environment Canada

Well, the numbers are in, and they should terrify all of us. March was an extremely dry month throughout the Okanagan Valley, with Kelowna experiencing its sixth driest month on record. To the north, Vernon had its fourth driest month on record and Penticton had its second driest March on record, with only 1.8 mm of precipitation compared with an average of 23.6 mm. Those are some troubling numbers, especially when contrasted with a city skyline increasingly dotted with cranes, as Kelowna continues to be one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada.

B.C.’s new model for predicting runoff into Okanagan Lake has a very different forecast for 2023

B.C.’s new model for predicting runoff into Okanagan Lake has a very different forecast for 2023

Each year heading into spring melt, B.C. tries its best to predict how much water will runoff into Okanagan Lake and other water bodies in the province. It’s important information as the provincial government manages the lake level using a dam in Penticton and has to strike the right balance to ensure sufficient water in the lake to last through the hot and dry summer, but not so much it causes flooding.

Ice volcanoes, steam devils and ice pancakes show up during Okanagan’s deep freeze

Ice volcanoes, steam devils and ice pancakes show up during Okanagan’s deep freeze

Ice volcanoes have formed again along the shores of Okanagan Lake in Penticton. An ice volcano is a conical mound of ice formed over a lake via the eruption of water and slush through an ice shelf. The process is wave-driven, with wind providing the energy for the waves to cut through the ice and form the so-called volcanoes. The liquid water and slush freeze and fall back to the surface, growing the formation.

Here's what a local lake looks like without water, as crews replace an outlet pipe near Summerland

Here's what a local lake looks like without water, as crews replace an outlet pipe near Summerland

Ever wondered what a local lake would look like without water? That's the situation at Isintok Lake in the hills above Summerland, B.C., as crews replace an outlet pipe. The District of Summerland, just north of Penticton, emptied the lake, which serves as one of many reservoirs for the town, to fix a century-old pipe in the Isintok Dam. "After years of doing video inspections in the outlet pipes of our dam, we did discover that there was significant leakage in the pipe in Isintok that was near 100 years old," Devon van der Meulen, water utilities manager at Summerland, told CBC's Daybreak South on Tuesday.

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