Levels reached a peak of 914.19 ft. at 2:30 a.m. on May 15 and stayed at that level through much of the morning.

By afternoon, Wednesday, the lake level made a slight decline, reaching 914.12 ft. at 11 p.m.

The water level has continued to drop Thursday, and as of 10 a.m. is at 914.04 ft. – still very high for this time of year, but moving in the right direction.

The change is more dramatic on the Similkameen River measured near Nighthawk, WA, which is a predictor of rises and falls on Osoyoos Lake.

After reaching a peak discharge of 20,600 cubic ft. per second at 6:15 p.m. Monday, May 13, levels began dropping at 9:15 p.m. Monday. As of 10 a.m. Thursday, volume has fallen to 13,800. This is the lowest level since May 8.

Although the Similkameen River joins the Okanogan River below the Zosel Dam at Oroville, WA, its flow determines whether water can leave Osoyoos Lake when levels are high. When water is high on the Similkameen, it backs up at the dam, preventing water from leaving the lake.

Linda Larson celebrates with her supporters while watching provincial election results at the Silver Sage Winery in Oliver Tuesday night. Larson waltzed to an easy victory to become the new MLA for Boundary-Similkameen. It was a great night for Larson, the former mayor of Oliver and current Oliver town councillor, and her party as the provincial Liberals shocked many pundits by claiming a landslide majority government over the favoured NDP and its leader Adrian Dix. Photo by Richard McGuire.

Voters of Boundary-Similkameen decisively elected Liberal Linda Larson Tuesday in a provincial election that swept her party back to a majority government.
Larson was leading with more than 46 per cent of the vote to NDP Candidate Sam Hancheroff’s 39 per cent with 122 of 124 polls reporting when the Osoyoos Times went to press.
“I had an extremely strong team of women,” a jubilant Larson told supporters as they toasted her victory and the Liberals’ surprisingly strong showing at the Silver Sage Winery south of Oliver. “If it hadn’t been for a handful of women, we would never have got this moving and up off the ground.”
Provincially, the Liberals appeared headed for a majority with 50 seats to the NDP’s 33. One seat each went to the Green Party and an independent.
In Boundary-Similkameen, with 122 polls reporting, Larson had 7,523 votes, Hancheroff had 6,403, Green Party Candidate John Kwasnica had 1,448, independent Mischa Popoff had 583 and independent Doug Pederson had 335.
Besides having an enthusiastic team of women, Larson attributes her win to being better known in the riding than the other candidates and having a clear Liberal message she could take to voters.
Larson has served a number of years on Oliver town council, including a period as mayor, and she has been on a number of local boards and committees – positions she will now have to give up.
“We have a good strong message,” she said. “It’s very simple, and if we stick to it, I trusted the common sense of the people of British Columbia.”
The emphasis on a strong economy, she said, was easy to campaign with and she could keep her message short and clear at the doors.
“We’re not going to throw money at you, but we’re not going to take money away from you,” she told voters.
“I think the NDP shot itself in the foot by being scattered,” she said.
Despite her criticism of the NDP’s message, she praised her local opponents and thanked each of them “for being gentlemen.”
Larson said she hasn’t given a lot of thought to her new life as an MLA, which will require frequent travel back and forth to Victoria and periods away from her husband Larry.
She said she is used to frequent travel with the boards and committees she sits on and said her husband pulls his weight looking after her aging mother at their home.
Larson had taken an extended leave of absence from Oliver town council after announcing her candidacy for the provincial election.
Hancheroff was gracious in defeat, saying he ran a good campaign with excellent people working for him.
The former teacher and longtime school board trustee said he wouldn’t have done anything different to win more votes because he worked really hard.
“I’m not a loser (in this election). I gained a lot of knowledge and experience.”
Hancheroff said he believed he had the skills to help people with their problems and to provide solutions, particularly in the agriculture and education sectors.
Hancheroff said he tried to get in touch with Larson Tuesday night to congratulate her, but wasn’t able to connect with the new MLA.
“I think she ran a great campaign.”
He said Larson’s challenge now is to promote ideas to provide the jobs that are needed in this area.
But he expressed his concern that British Columbians have to wake up to another four years of Liberal leadership under Christy Clark and the debt she has created.
When asked if he would run again, he said he didn’t think so.
He gave this election his best shot, and at age 65, Hancheroff said he wants to spend more time with his family.
John Kwasnica, who took his first step into the political arena by gaining the nomination for the Green Party, said he was pleased to have captured almost 10 per cent of the popular vote.
“It’s about what I was hoping for,’ said Kwasnica, who lives in Oliver. “I was hoping the party would do a little better than it did, but it is what it is.”
Kwasnica said he was very surprised the Liberals waltzed to a majority government. “I really thought the NDP was going to show up a lot more than they did,” he said. “I’m a little shocked at what happened to the NDP.”
Kwasnica said he enjoyed the experience of running a campaign and says he would consider running again.
Mischa Popoff, who ran as an independent candidate after being kicked out of the Conservative Party by leader John Cummins early in the campaign for comments he wrote about single mothers and the Missing Women’s Inquiry in separate newspaper columns, said he “thoroughly enjoyed” the campaign.
While he garnered just over 600 votes, Popoff said many residents throughout the riding considered him a very viable candidate, but most admitted they would not vote for him.
“I had so many people come up to me and tell me they liked the answers I had the various all-candidates meeting … then I would ask if they were going to vote for me and invariably they said ‘no’ because most said they had to vote Liberal because they were scared to death of the NDP winning,” said Popoff, who  spent election night at a friend’s house along with his wife Sherry. “I don’t have any regrets about running because I really enjoyed myself.
“I really thought, if anything, that if anything came out of this it would be to set myself up for my future political aspirations. I got my name out there and I think I conducted a very solid campaign. I’m only 45 and I’m only starting in politics. You will be hearing from me again.”
Popoff said he was “shocked” the Liberals waltzed to an overwhelming majority.
“I thought it was going to be very close, maybe two or three seats one way or the other, but I never predicted the Liberals walking to a landslide win like this,” he said. “I did know on the local campaign trail that a lot of people told me they were very afraid of the NDP and I guess that was the feeling across the province.”

On Monday evening, (from left) Mike Ball, Annette Star, Sasha Strange and Germaine Star were hurriedly filling sandbags at the north end of town as water rose at nearby houses. The flooding is unusually early. Records were broken both for the lake level and volume of water in the Similkameen River for this time of year.
Photo by Richard McGuire.

Local lakefront homeowners are desperately sandbagging as the level of Osoyoos Lake threatens to rise to 914.5 ft., a level that would flood some homes.
The Town of Osoyoos and Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) are distributing sand and bags for use by residents.
In Osoyoos, bags can be obtained at the public works yard at 11500 – 115 St. and sand is available on Hwy. 3 across from the Dairy Queen and at 91 St. and 87 St. behind Osoyoos Cemetery.
A shipment of 40,000 bags was received at the public works yard at midnight Monday, said Dale Kronebusch, emergency services supervisor with the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS).
He added that if the situation becomes more tenuous, some pallets of bags may be distributed so that they are closer to the sand.
A third location for residents to pick up sand was added Tuesday at the south end of Osoyoos near 22 Ave. and 85 St., Kronebusch said.
“This is a concerted effort by the Town of Osoyoos, the RDOS and Emergency Management B.C.,” Kronebusch said. “We’re all working together to make sure we’ve got the tools out there to get over this bit of a hump of the spring freshet.”
Kronebusch advised people to be particularly aware of groundwater and water flowing over roads and other infrastructure and especially to watch that water isn’t getting at foundations.
If water reaches foundations, it can get underneath and hollow them out making repairs very difficult.
The high water levels will also impede boats trying to cross under the bridge at Hwy. 3, he said, adding the timing is bad as the long weekend approaches.
On Monday evening, Annette Star, Mike Ball, Germaine Star and Sasha Strange were hurriedly filling sandbags at the north end of town as water rose at nearby houses.
Annette Star said this is the third year in a row she’s had to sandbag, but the threat came earlier this year.
Lake levels rose rapidly last week as temperatures climbed into the mid-30s and water continued rising even as temperatures cooled this week.
The flooding is unusually early. Records were broken both for the lake level and volume of water in the Similkameen River for this time of year.
Temperatures caused rapid snow melt at higher elevations, causing tributaries of the Similkameen to swell as well as water in the Okanagan lakes to rise.
By Thursday, the Similkameen River was backing up at the Zosel Dam in Oroville, preventing water from draining from the lake.
All gates at the dam were raised completely from the water Thursday afternoon, meaning the dam can no longer control rising lake levels.
The Similkameen River joins the Okanogan River just below the Zosel Dam and when the Similkameen’s level is high, water backs up and the dam becomes ineffective.
“The level of the lake right now, it’s all about the Similkameen,” said Al Josephy, with Washington State’s Department of Ecology’s Office of Columbia River.
This year the rise of the lake is several weeks earlier than usual, and the rise is more precipitous, said Josephy.
“It’s quite early,” he said. “Looking back at the historical record, it’s much more common for the Similkameen to not rise a lot until late May and on into June.”
In addition to the dam becoming ineffective as a result of the rising Similkameen River, and impeding outflow from the lake, water is also coming into the lake from upstream at a faster rate.
Osoyoos Lake is fed from the much larger Okanagan Lake, which is controlled at Penticton to make room for snow runoff in the upper watershed. This puts pressure on Osoyoos Lake.
The Zosel Dam is owned by the Washington Department of Ecology, but during the runoff season it can become impossible to dump more water from Osoyoos Lake at the dam.
“When runoff is high throughout the system, dam gates are wide open,” said Josephy. “Even so, there will still be areas of flooding and inconvenience to property owners along the lake and down to the site of the dam itself.”
The state attempts to maintain the lake level between 911.5 and 912 feet from May 1 to Sept. 15, a level mandated by the International Joint Commission (IJC).
“The lake often rises beyond 913 feet and has reached as high as 915 feet, through rarely,” Josephy said.
Early Tuesday, the level of Osoyoos Lake crossed the 914 mark, exceeding the May 14 record of 913.82 ft. set in 1983.
Flow volume and height on the Similkameen broke May 10 records Friday, according to data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The previous May 10 record for daily discharge near Nighthawk measured in cubic feet per second was 16,100 recorded in 1957. Friday it was measured at 16,400.
By Monday, discharge had risen past 20,000 cubic feet per second, but it was well below the May 13 record of 23,100 set in 1949.
Gauge height, also near Nighthawk, broke 1987 records, reaching 12.93 ft. Monday afternoon. On Tuesday, discharge and height on the Similkameen was starting to recede.
Snow is melting at a rapid rate on mountains such as Mount Kobau, but there is still a considerable amount of snow above the 1,800-metre elevation.
On Sunday, the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (FLNRO) said it was maintaining a high stream flow advisory for the Similkameen River.
“Snowmelt has been rapid over the past week as a result of unseasonably high temperatures,” the May 12 FLNRO bulletin said. “Rivers across the South Interior have been flowing high in response to this snow melt.”
Temperatures for the coming week are forecasted to be much lower with daily highs in Osoyoos reaching around 20 degrees Celsius, according to Environment Canada.
The Osoyoos Times will provide regular updates over the next several days on the flood situation in and around Osoyoos on its website at www.osoyoostimes.com.

Members of Town of Osoyoos Council pose after Mayor Stu Wells announced the new name of the Desert Sunrise Marina at a ceremony Friday. From left are councillors Mike Plante, Michael Ryan, Sue McKortoff, Mayor Wells and Coun. C.J. Rhodes.
Photo by Richard McGuire.

The revamped town marina has a new name – Desert Sunrise Marina.
The new name was unveiled last Friday by Mayor Stu Wells in a ceremony marking the marina’s grand opening.
A sign with the new name has been erected on the hill just above the marina.
Wells said town council chose the name, which combined portions of names submitted by several members of the community.
The marina has 32 slips protected by a fence and gate with 16 used by the Watermark Beach Resort and 16 rented out by the town through a lottery system.
There are also public washrooms, and the Lake Osoyoos Sailing Club has revamped the exterior of the old CPR railway station that is used as a clubhouse.
The work on the marina has been a long process involving many departments, Wells said.
And it has had many challenges, often involving funding and deadlines.
Just when everything seemed to be moving along, the discovery of a painted turtle on the site in February 2011 ground the project to a halt.
“It was the breeding season, and they breed in the mud,” Wells said. “So we had to delay and shut the whole thing down for three months.”
When at last the project got going again, the town had to work around schedules of spawning fish.
The entire project cost around $1.2 million, Wells said, but that includes sidewalks, lights and other improvements.
The town paid about half that cost, but $308,000 of that came from provincial funds provided to 14 resort municipalities in B.C. Watermark Beach Resort was the other major contributor.
Among the highlights of the project, Wells pointed to the public washrooms, new boat launching ramps and the 32 slips.
The marina gives the town a greater ability to direct activity on the lake, which ties in with a proposed bylaw to establish zoning in the shoreline area, Wells said.
Along with other improvements such as the Pioneer Walk, it enhances the waterfront experience for both local residents and visitors, the mayor said.
“We’re very happy to have delivered this,” he said.

Sisters-in-law Etta-Mae Pratt (left) and Annette Star have volunteered to take over the task of trying to raise the tens of thousands of dollars needed for the annual Canada Day fireworks display in Osoyoos. The ladies started their efforts this week and will be asking local businesses for support over the next several weeks. Donation boxes have also been set up at both Osoyoos grocery stores. Photo by Keith Lacey.

It’s going to be a hectic six weeks, but sisters-in-law Annette Star and Etta-Mae Pratt say they’re up for the challenge as the new fundraising co-ordinators with the Osoyoos Fireworks Committee.
“We’re ready to go,” said Star, who along with Pratt, will be seeking donations from business owners and residents starting this week. “It’s going to be a very busy few weeks, but we’re excited.”
After 17 years as fundraising co-ordinator, local resident Frank Zandvliet stepped down this year and Star and Pratt quickly stepped in.
Zandvliet, who works in public works for the Town of Osoyoos, will remain in charge of purchasing the fireworks and working with a small group of volunteers to set up and fire off the fireworks display on Canada Day.
But Zandvliet says he needed a break from the dozens of hours he spent every year asking for financial support from the local business community and residents.
He had become friends with Star and when she and her sister-in-law offered to take over the fundraising duties, Zandvliet knew they would do a fantastic job as they both have great personalities and a passion for ensuring the Osoyoos Canada Day fireworks display remained something special.
The fact that the Town of Osoyoos has the second-largest Canada Day fireworks display in the entire country, behind only the one held in the nation’s capital, is a great source of pride for the residents of this community and that’s why they believe they will receive the same kind of positive response in their new roles, said Star.
“The real blitz begins today (Monday) and we’ve already received very good response from everyone we’ve talked to,” she said. “A lot of people are used to working with Frank and many of them don’t realize that he’s stepped down and we’re taking  his place, but once they realize that, they have been very receptive.”
Star and Pratt say their goal is to simply ask all local businesses and as many residents as they possibly can to donate what they can to a great cause.
“We have a list of every business in town with a business licence and every business that has contributed in the past and our goal is to visit everyone and ask them to donate what they can,” said Star. “We also have an introductory letter and business cards made up so we can introduce ourselves to the community.
“We know that not everyone can contribute and we only ask that business owners and people give what they can because every penny counts.”
Donation bins have also been set up at the local Buy-Low and Family Food grocery stores in Osoyoos and will remain there throughout May and June.
To put on the second-largest fireworks display in the country costs a lot of money, said Star.
“I think people would be shocked if they knew how much it cost to put this all on,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important to get community support because we wouldn’t be able to hold this amazing fireworks display every single year without the support of the community.”
To help generate additional revenue, Star and Pratt will be participating in a fundraising event at Beyond Beauty in the Cottonwood Mall on May 22. The local business will be holding a Spark Your Beauty event between 6-8 p.m. All proceeds on May 22 will go to the local fireworks committee.
The Osoyoos Elks Lodge is also holding a yard sale and bottle drive on Saturday, June 15 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Local residents can drop off unwanted items or bottles in the parking lot at the Elks Lodge, with all proceeds once again being donated to the fireworks committee.
The immediate goal is to raise at least $25,000 in the next week or so as that’s the deposit necessary for Zandvliet to order the fireworks for this year’s display, said Star.
While Zandvliet did an amazing job as the fundraising co-ordinator, Star and Pratt said they are looking forward to this new challenge and hope to do as good a job as he did for so many years.
“Our goal is to bring in a few more dollars than Frank did last year,” said Pratt. “It’s not going to be easy because everyone in town knows Frank, but that’s our goal.”
Anyone wanting more information or to make a personal donation to the fireworks committee can contact Star or Pratt at 250-495-6227.

In Peachland, the average single family home is assessed at $422,000, but ratepayers pay an average of $1,202 in municipal taxes
With the due date for 2013 taxes being the first week in July, council had to approve its tax bylaw before May 15. The bylaw received its first three readings at the April 15 meeting of council.
The tax rates bylaw for 2013 is in line with the town’s five-year financial plan and the overall budget for municipal tax revenue is $2.36 million, which is only a $9,100 increase over the 2012 budget, said the town’s director of financial service Jim Zakall.
The town is responsible for collecting and remitting taxes for other taxing authorities, including schools, hospitals, the RCMP, the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen, the Okanagan Regional Library, B.C. Assessment Authority and Municipal Finance Authority.
The 2012 benefit for property owners eligible to claim a home owner grant whose home is located in B.C., but outside the Capital Regional District, Greater Vancouver Regional District and Fraser Valley Regional District will continue in 2013. This benefit, called the Northern and Rural Homeowners Benefit, is $200 above the current home owner grant levels, said Zakall.
Wells said the level of municipal services provided to property owners in Osoyoos remains steady, while ratepayers continue to pay “some of the lowest” municipal taxes of any community in this province.
“”Those are impressive numbers … I think we’re doing very well,” he said.
After implementing a zero per cent tax increase in 2012 and keeping this year’s hike under two per cent, Wells said local property owners should be very pleased.
“We have accomplished a lot with minimal increases in taxes,” he said. “I’m quite proud of be part of the team that has accomplished this.”
Several major infrastructure projects were completed in the town in 2012 without an increase in taxes and many more major infrastructure upgrades will be completed in 2013, he said.