Unearthing a creek

Photo: Google Earth

Red section outlines currently buried creek

A proposed project to daylight a section of Prairie Creek near Giant’s Head School in Summerland has been met with questions from School District 67.

Trustees agreed to write the Okanagan Basin Water Board a letter of support for a grant application for engineering and hydrology studies, eager to see the results.

“We don't really know at this point, without their next step and engineering study, where they want to go with this creek,” said Director of Facilities Doug Gorack, noting the School District is only responsible for mowing area lawn currently.

He says questions remain over how much space an open creek bed would take up, cutting off the schools access to the baseball fields, responsibility should flooding occur and more.

“And that’s where I think going to the next step, and getting engineering results and really seeing what they are proposing, may be beneficial, but it also could get us to the point where we have too many unanswered questions,” Gorack said.

Ecologist Don Gayton said the project is inspired by a similar one at the KLO Middle School in Kelowna, where Fascieux Creek was restored with added benefit of creating an outdoor classroom.

“The Dale Meadows area, if you backed up to about 1900, that was a 400 acre marsh… so we are just looking at trying to get a very very small portion of the natural habitat back,” Gayton said

He says Prairie Creek still manages to support rainbow trout despite being underground under much of Summerland.

The project is moving cautiously at this point, and Gayton knows there are many questions still to be answered. The next step is acquiring grant funding for those engineering studies.