Construction crews at Penticton Creek are working on restorations before salmon return in the fall

The City of Penticton is right in the middle of their efforts to upgrade Penticton Creek before salmon return in the fall.

Ian Chapman, the City of Penticton engineer on the project, said the work is going well and the city is focusing on helping with flood prevention. 

“It is more attuned to addressing the flooding impact than say the habitat or fish impact, but everything we do has to satisfy the requirements, the objectives of preventing both flood prevention and fish and wildlife habitat,” Chapman said. 

This phase of the project focuses on an area higher up the creek, and takes care of more remains from the concrete chute which was formed at the bottom of the creek years ago. 

The concrete is being ripped up and replaced with rocks and pool areas, ideal for spawning.

“We’re replacing them with rock ripples,” Chapman said. “This would create a river channel that is both suitable to convey the future floods, a higher volume of water than this could currently accommodate and then there’s the fish and habitat benefits that will also accrue to the projects.” 

The full restoration project is expected to take a couple of decades to complete, but the salmon are already seeing better numbers.

“The restoration of Penticton creek is really important, there’s not that many streams that go in the Okanagan Lake. It provides fish habitat and spawning for the fishery that exists in the lake," said Paul Askey, a fishery scientist with the Freshwater Fishery Society of BC.

The Penticton Indian Band is also at the construction site for archeological and environmental monitoring.