This week's speaker was Nelson Jatel a previous member of the Kelowna Capri club

Highlights of his talk included the fact that the OBWB has been serving the valley for some 42 years and Nelson started with some interesting slides on the early history of the development of the valley, going as far back as 1905. Among other things these pictures showed the manufacture and placement of the wooden pipes that brought water down to irrigate the orchards. The valley only averages 325 ml of rainfall each year so there is great dependency on the recovery of water from the lakes and the mountain run offs.

The OBWB is governed by three members each from three areas of the valley and it has an office staff of four with four others who are field members. The board is mainly concerned with water foil control, sewage facilities and water control. 

There has been considerable effort made to reclaim some of the previous spawning channels in the tributaries of the Columbia River in order to encourage the sockeye salmon to return into our system, and it is working. The naturalization of the spawning channels is attracting some 540,000 spawners back into the area.

There are 21 water suppliers to the population in the region and the top 10 supply water to areas with the highest growth population in the province and one of the highest in Canada. Some of the biggest challenges for the OBWB is in dealing with the effects of climate change, the mountain pine beetle and wild fires.    

They are also having to deal with the invasive species of mussels that are brought into the are by visitors and returning residents. If not controlled this could be a really big problem for our area.

Nelson was introduced by Sharron Simpson and thanked by Jodi Byrne.