We can do better

What has our “Okanagan Lake Water Level Manager” been thinking? Let us brainstorm a bit and summarize some options:

• The OLWL Manager wasn’t really paying attention to what was evolving weather-wise in the North American territories,
• The OLWL Manager did pay attention, but he was distracted by his congenital fear for making that one and only crucial mistake in his profession: to end up in a flood situation, would spring downpours occur,
• The OLWL Manager lacks understanding the basket filled with all the factors influencing a safe and sound water level,
• The OLWL Manager has insufficient knowledge of our history, he lacks a helicopter-view and he isn’t aware of what scientists at the other side of the border have been warning for in the first quarter of this year.

Whatever option my dear reader wants to choose, the Okanagan residents are facing a lake that has a dangerously low water level. I personally think that a combination of the options has resulted in the current situation.

So, what is going to be done about this water problem? We’ll take the Canadian way, we tell this manager that he has done a wonderful job, but that he maybe next year could do a tiny bit better? Then we give him a salary raise and we promote him to a Senior Manager and leave the lake job to a successor.

In the meantime we’ll put the burden of this problem on the shoulders of our residents. The City of Kelowna – “Good morning Mayor Basran” – has quickly acted and demanded from its residents to start conserving water. It is again the easy way out. The enfolding drought was predicted early this year by scientists in the West of the USA. There are loads of scientific reports to be found on the free internet. Did our water manager really believe that the drought would stop at the border? Oh yes of course he could have. After all, the border was closed because of Covid.

Weather, climate and Mother Nature aren’t being restricted by manmade borders. Canadians should start looking at the world beyond our borders. There is so much we can learn from the outside world. Non-Canadians aren’t aliens, they are humans and many of them are very smart. Let us learn from them. Let us copy their best practices and apply them in our own country Canada. Let us hope next year the “than-water manager” will have learned the lesson.

Ronald Ratgers, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineer, Kelowna