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.
While flood water from Whiteman’s Creek on Okanagan Indian Band land, near Vernon, B.C., have receded, the waterway is still running very high and the evacuation order for adjacent homes was expanded overnight. Megan Turcato has more on the damage already done and why the area isn’t out of danger yet.
It was the Coldstream Ranch manager, Crawley Ricardo who, in 1905, hired engineer A.E. Ashcroft to look at creating an irrigation system from Jones Creek (now called Duteau Creek) with dams on Aberdeen and Haddo lakes in the hills south of Coldstream. The massive project started with the creation of the White Valley Irrigation and Power Company in 1906 to initially supply the Coldstream Ranch and Estates with water.
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.
W5 investigated aging asbestos pipes across Canada and the potential health hazards if it ends up in your tap water. We spent several months trying to get to the bottom of two things: Where are these pipes, and is there asbestos in Canada’s water? We reached out and asked over 100 towns, districts and municipalities what types of pipes were in use, and whether there were maps of these networks.
Unseasonable warmth over much of British Columbia is showing no sign of easing, with another day of temperature records in the books and many regions reporting no significant rain since early July. Environment Canada says 11 daily maximum temperature records were set Wednesday across parts of Vancouver Island, the Central Coast, the southern Interior and southeast B.C. At 26.9 C, the Pemberton area broke a record that has stood since 1908.
Aecom, a global design and engineering consultancy, has hired Rod Conde as operations manager for its buildings and places business in Calgary. The firm also announced it won a contract to provide engineering services for a new filtration facility at the Mission Hill Water Treatment Plant in Vernon, BC. Conde is an architect who brings over 22 years of experience across a range of design scopes, delivery models, building scales, and complexities. He has worked on projects for clients across retail, light industrial, residential, and institutional.
Help is needed to keep citizens cool as temperatures soar towards 40 degrees Celsius this week. The Upper Room Mission and Turning Points Collaborative Society are looking for donations of water to keep people hydrated. “This rising heat is so dangerous,” said the Outreach Team with Turning Points, which provides water and refillable bottles to those in need.
An investigation by B.C.'s independent watchdog for forestry management practices has found that Tolko Forest Industries were not responsible for landslides in Vernon, B.C. in 2020, but that the company could have done more to help mitigate the situation. Kevin Kriese, chair of the Forest Practices Board, says a complaint had been made by a group called Silver Hills Watershed Watch, who were concerned about Tolko's timber harvesting operations between Lumby — in the northern Okanagan Valley, east of the city of Vernon — and Cherryville, further east.
B.C.'s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy is announcing new rules for farmers, intended to protect water sources and "provide more clarity for the agricultural sector." According to the ministry, the rules will protect groundwater with proper manure and nutrient storage, ban direct discharges, allow increased monitoring in high-risk areas, and require record keeping.
