The Okanagan Basin is a transboundary watershed, with political borders that fish and water do not recognize. The COBTWG responds to the transboundary nature of fish stocks and water throughout the Okanagan Basin by working with US Agencies when appropriate.

Starting in 2001, once or twice a year an informal ‘Bilateral’ Okanagan Basin Technical Working Group (BOBTWG) meets to co-ordinate technical work to maximize the benefits to fish and other users of the Okanagan Basin.
These meetings give the agencies an opportunity to discuss technical issues and identify opportunities to share information on salmon stocks, habitat and programs and initiatives.

This involves working with parallel governments in the United States that deal with this tributary to the Columbia River. These agencies include Colville Confederated Tribes, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, National Fisheries Marine Service and power generating Public Utility Districts that affect fish passage and survival. This partnership has been developing successfully, and some funding from US interests has been secured to undertake projects in Canada that provide benefits on both sides of the border.

    

The Fish Water Management Tools Project (FWMT) is a state-of-the art computer model developed specifically to help authorities manage water flows in the Okanagan River in a “fish friendly” manner. It was developed and implemented in 2001 through a cooperative venture between the COBTWG and Douglas County Public Utility District. The model benefits kokanee as well as sockeye salmon since water levels in Okanagan Lake are fine tuned at the same time as Okanagan River flows.

The sophisticated FWMT computer model uses real time field data and can quickly predict the benefits and the risks of numerous water storage and release options. These predictions allow a multi-disciplinary team of decision makers to choose the best option for releasing flows in a manner which will benefit fish while respecting the needs of other water users.

The COBTWG and BC Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management are embarking on a new long term fisheries planning process for the Okanagan and the Similkameen. 2003 and 2004 will be spent setting the stage for "Watershed-based Fish Sustainability Planning" (WFSP). WFSP is a process developed by DFO and provincial agencies to be fish focused and to identify and address watershed priorities by developing comprehensive watershed plans. Although the focus is on fisheries, the process does address the need to include water in planning and obtain support from non-fish interests. This year will be spent: compiling relevant reports; assessing the state of the basin for fisheries; developing an implementation plan for WFSP; and starting community consultations.

In 1999 to 2000 the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) implemented a program for to complete comprehensive planning on all tributaries to the Columbia River. The initial step was to complete a Sub-basin Summary, which identified the current state of knowledge relating to the sub-basin and to identify limiting factors and gaps in knowledge. Members of the COBTWG commented on sections of the Okanogan/Okanagan Sub-Basin Summary that related to the Canadian portion of the sub-basin.

In collaboration with the Colville Confederated Tribes and the Okanagan Nation Alliance has been providing historic and current technical information and analysis into the development of the Okanogan/Okanagan Sub-basin Plan, which evolved out of the summary. The COBTWG will be given opportunity to review and comment on those sections of the Plan that relate to the Canadian Portion of the Okanagan Basin.

The Okanagan Sub-Basin plan will be completed in May 2004 and will undergo review by the NPCC Independent Scientific Review Panel. The resulting Sub-Basin plans will be used as a tool to guide and evaluate fish and wildlife mitigation programs, proposals and funding over the next 10-15 years.

The migration of indigenous sockeye salmon has been terminated by the operation of McIntyre Dam, located on the Okanagan River between Osoyoos and Vaseux Lakes. Once an important food fishery, this dam has moved the historic Okanagan Nation fishing grounds at Okanagan Falls to a limited conservation fishery further downstream. Other management actions have also contributed to the depletion of these stocks. As an ONA priority to assist in maintaining and sustaining this struggling salmon stock, the ONA hosted a multi-agency workshop in 1997 to explore the potential to bring sockeye salmon into Okanagan Lake. Due to concerns of unknown interactions with an already struggling kokanee population in Okanagan Lake, agency experts agreed that the best course of action would be to proceed with a risk assessment to evaluate the experimental placement of sockeye salmon into Skaha Lake.

The ONA and Colville Confederated Tribes, with project funding provided by the Bonneville Power Administration, have completed a three-year risk assessment from 2000-2003. During this time, members of the COBTWG, agency staff, and other independent experts have provided annual technical review and assessment of project design, methodology, and results.

At the end of the three-year risk assessment in the spring of 2003, it was determined that putting sockeye salmon into Skaha Lake posed little threat to resident fish stocks with proper project design. The COBTWG decided to proceed with an experimental fry supplementation program. This method will yield significant information on the survival of kokanee and sockeye at various life history stages and will also provide valuable information on their interactions within Skaha Lake. The COBTWG is working together to develop a comprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation Plan that uses the best scientific procedures and protocols available. With approvals provided by the Federal-Provincial Introductions and Transfers Committee under the Federal Fisheries Act, the ONA is now moving forward with implementation planning.

The COBTWG deals exclusively with technical fisheries issues. From time to time, their work triggers the need for policy decisions. As a result, a Canadian Okanagan Basin Policy Table is under development, and an ad-hoc meeting was held in June 2003. It will consist of core management staff from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Ministry of Water Land and Air Protection and Okanagan Nation Alliance. Other agencies such as Environment Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management may be included when issues arise that requires their participation.

The ‘Newbury Riffles’ were installed August 2000 in the Okanagan River immediately below the 350th Avenue bridge that crosses the river in Oliver BC. There are 17 Vertical Drop Structures (VDS) in the Okanagan River that were installed in the early 1950s to dissipate hydraulic energy at high flows. Unfortunately the best technology available then hasn’t stood the test of time, and the VDS are beginning to undercut. The purpose of the ‘experimental riffles’ was to evaluate this method as an option for backwatering the (VDS) to slow their rate of deterioration and minimize liability. These ‘riffles’ have the potential to be used in the restoration of the Okanagan River in areas where oxbow restoration, set-back diking, or other rehabilitation options are not feasible. The benefit of the riffles are that they not only serve the purpose of flood control for the river but are also ‘fish friendly’ in terms of fish habitat and passage.

The riffles are a series of four rock riffle/pool complexes that backwaters the VDS. The riffles offer an opportunity to convert part of the Okanagan River from a uniform channel to a more natural riffle/pool sequence. This is expected to have increased spawning and rearing habitat and improve migration for indigenous species such as sockeye, kokanee and rainbow trout/steelhead. In addition, these riffles have also been constructed in Mission Creek, the main tributary to Okanagan Lake.

Design for the riffles was funded by the regional Fisheries Renewal BC partnership group in a project led by the ONA and the structure itself was funded by Douglas County Public Utility District and implemented by the Ministry of Water Land and Air Protection, Penticton Branch.

In 2003, 2004 an assessment of the riffles will help provide future direction of the use of the experimental riffles as a potential restoration method for the Okanagan Watershed.

Government agencies and non-government organizations have worked cooperatively to produce a plan to restore portions of the river. Restoration is impractical in many places along the river because of the amount of development that has taken place. In some other areas the slope of the river is too low to be beneficial to the salmon and trout. The strategy consists of accessing key riverside properties, and then moving back existing dykes to allow room for the river to rebuild a meandering channel and fully functional floodplain. Due to the reduced energy in this river system associated with a regulated flow regime, the plan calls for some in-stream works to encourage development of these natural features. For more details on the restoration plan, a copy of the report can be obtained from the MOE office in Penticton.

ORRI Brochure Information

This restoration method has proved successful in many countries and is working well in a short portion of the Okanagan River that was originally constructed with set back dykes. Nevertheless, the concept of relocating existing dykes is untried locally and a limited project has been suggested to showcase the benefits.

The project is supported by a Project Committee. Membership consists of representatives from:

• COBTWG
  
• The Land Conservancy
  
• South Okanagan Similkameen Conservation Program
  (a consortium of 32 Conservation Groups)
  
• Ducks Unlimited Canada
  
• Canadian Wildlife Service
  
• Okanagan Region Wildlife Heritage Fund Society

The ORRI Project will return part of the channelized river back into a natural meandering path connected to its historic floodplain. Dykes will be set back (construction work starting in fall 2008), river meanders will be restored, and pool/riffle sequences will be created. On the re-established floodplain, riparian vegetation will be restored. The creation of complex and diverse natural habitat will provide high quality spawning habitat for all fish species and rearing habitat for steelhead, rainbow trout and possibly Chinook. Reconnection with the floodplain should decrease silt loads in the main channel. Egg to fry survival is expected to increase and rearing sites will be established where there are presently none. The project is designed to be self-sustaining and ecosystem based.

McIntyre Dam is located between Oliver and Okanagan Falls and is a part of the Okanagan Basin Lake Regulation System. McIntyre Dam controls lake levels in Vaseux Lake and Okanagan River flows between Vaseux Lake and Osoyoos Lake. When this dam was constructed in 1954, no upstream fish passage provisions were included.

In 2009, McIntyre Dam Project refitted the actual gates in order to provide adult salmon passage upstream and improve juvenile salmon downstream migration, by:

• Replacing the existing undershot gates with overshot gates;
• Building a backwater riffle downstream of the dam;
• Monitoring the impacts on sockeye salmon migration (juvenile and adults);
• Installing a permanent screen in Oliver irrigation canal (Town of Oliver).

This project allows salmon to access another 8 km of Okanagan River, and Vaseux Lake, an important historic habitat which they have been unable to reach for the last several decades.