Backgrounder: Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for the Okanagan Basin

Okanagan River sockeye are the last persistent population of more than a dozen original salmon stocks that once lived in the area. The sockeye have been declining over the past 50 years, mostly due to human actions.

Salmon returning to the Okanagan River in Canada must pass through nine hydro dams. High water temperatures and low oxygen levels in Osoyoos Lake during August to October limit sockeye production by contributing to mortality during rearing. Adaptation measures must be taken soon to help manage salmon population and restoration in the region.

The Okanagan basin faces a looming water crisis facing both people and wildlife, including sockeye. To help the salmon and other plants and animals, water should be set aside for ecosystem needs first, allowing a more realistic and honest estimate of surplus water available for future growth. This will ensure appropriate planning decisions can be made. This water for ecosystem needs would therefore be removed from the supply that is available for new water allocation.

Many streams in the Okanagan are already fully or over-allocated. Indeed, many past water licensing decisions were made in a vacuum, with limited or no understanding of sub-basin and basin-wide water budgets and seasonal and inter-annual hydrologic variation. Reforming water licensing in British Columbia (and Canada) is the first critical step towards reconciling future climate and growing human populations with a life-sustaining environment.

Despite having the lowest per capita water supply in Canada and using twice the national per capita average, the Okanagan does not have universal metering. Whenever feasible, local governments should roll some of the funds from the metering back into other water use efficiency programs. Municipalities should pass zoning rules that more aggressively insist on increased housing densities and encourage the use of water efficient technologies, low flush toilets, rain and grey-water capture and separation, climate appropriate landscaping, etc.

To directly help Okanagan salmon population management and recovery in the face of a changing climate, three hard infrastructure strategies should be followed. First, manage water storage, using flow management in the design and construction of dams that as much as possible, take into account fish passage needs.

Second, re-introduce and expand access of endangered species to suitable habitats that are larger and more resilient to future climate change impacts in Osoyoos Lake, Skaha Lake and Okanagan Lake. A good model for this is the Okanagan Nations Alliance, which overcame concerns and challenges and brought together government and other stakeholder groups from Canada and the US to carry out numerous activities including transplanting sockeye so the fish can enter Skaha Lake. Restoring lakeside areas, by rip-rap removal, setting back dykes, re-meandering stream channels, augmenting spawning gravels, re-establishing pools and riffles or other actions can increase habitat quality and quantity.

Third, conserve pristine habitats creating an ‘insurance’ strategy for dealing with salmon and climate change. Governments must protect the few remaining great pristine places in new National and Provincial Parks and fortifying them with rules and regulations that make it clear they are off limits to development. This is the most effective way to safeguard the genetic and ecological integrity of many fish and wildlife populations – don’t ruin them to begin with.