Water is the next big issue for Greater Vernon

May 7, 2021 | 5:00 AM

Clean water, and access to it, is an issue all over the planet and Greater Vernon is no different, as the area faces rapid growth and increasing demand from agriculture, households and industry.

With lots of sunshine, early settlers to the valley quickly realized that if they could get water to the land, the agriculture potential was tremendous. Massive engineering feats like the Grey Canal were testament to how important the water resource was, and is.

Fast forward to 2021 and that conversation continues amongst local politicians, as a resurgence of intensive agriculture, industry growth and a growing population challenges the system.

The Greater Vernon Advisory Committee (GVAC) got into it Wednesday night, in a discussion about the water service area boundary extension policy, and review of a 100 plus page staff and consultants report.

“We are going to hang on this one. If we say we are going to extend boundaries because we have extra water, we better have that one well bolted down,” Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming told the committee during a two hour debate.

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The province is also taking a look at water licenses and may take a harder line on domestic and agriculture water licenses only being used for the intended purposes and not co-mingled.

“If they are hard and fast on those things, then that changes the game a little bit and the build-out of the Greater Vernon area,” Coldstream Mayor Jim Garlick said “That is still a question right…how much water is available?”

More intensive agriculture uses on smaller plots of land, like the Vegpro salad facility in Coldstream, are expected to increase demand for agriculture water.

“A good portion of our water license is agricultural. We don’t have water for much future growth if a lot of that license can’t be converted to domestic,” Area B director Bob Fleming stated. “Agriculture is a huge economic generator in the North Okanagan and it’s only going to get to be more, and I think we need to give it serious consideration how we deal with it.”

Committee members have agreed that a number of items need answers before decisions can be made on boundary extensions.

“As they always say: ‘whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting over,’ so I think we need to be very, very cautious as we step forward,” Cumming concluded.

by Kevin Rothwell

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