Environment committee  Yes, definitely the wine industry is one of the more progressive of all the agricultural industries that are here in the valley. Most of them have moved to highly efficient drip irrigation and are definitely managing water for grape quality. Our wine has an emphasis on high quali

Environment committee  I don't work one on one with those groups and their specific things. We have a close relationship with the B.C. Wildlife Federation. In general, most water things are underfunded here in British Columbia, whether it's wetland restoration or.... There's quite a bit of work and so

Environment committee  What can the federal government do to change the perception of water in Canada? It's hard to say. It's a really deeply embedded misperception that is down at the level of the public. It is an issue, because we're rightly proud of our water. When water issues occur they tend to oc

Environment committee  You guys are in the House of Commons. I don't know. I don't understand it. It doesn't seem logical. It doesn't seem fair. It's been this way for a long time. I think I would ask your committee to look into it. Really, it seems like our costs, the costs of the damage, will ultim

Environment committee  Yes, absolutely. This is true for all manner of water issues. I think all of the panellists here would agree on that.

Environment committee  Yes. Let's use the fire risk on the Duteau plateau as an example. This is going to take maybe $5 million a year for a number of years to do the wildfire mitigation work. It involves cutting down non-market timber, so the forestry companies who do it have to be compensated. The

Environment committee  I don't want to say anything bad about the Canada water agency, but most of the funding for their freshwater fund is going to the Great Lakes and eastern Canada. I think there is some funding earmarked for the Fraser River basin. One of our arguments for the federal government to

Environment committee  The federal government has been involved in recent years primarily through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It is supporting this massive salmon restoration project that's happening in the Okanagan: 80% of the Columbia River sockeye salmon and a significant number of endan

Environment committee  No, we do not. We are an organization of local governments. The local governments have some bylaw authority, but all that enforcement really comes from the provincial government.

Environment committee  The board's current challenges involve dealing with climate change-related extreme weather events, as I was discussing. There is also the issue of invasive mussels. This is why I brought both of these issues forward to you. These issues are the local governments' greatest concern

Environment committee  Thank you. I'm coming to you from the Okanagan Basin Water Board. We are a local government agency, a partnership of Okanagan local governments, and we have had a mandate since 1970 to take leadership on valley-wide water issues. We're one of the fastest growing regions in Canad

Fisheries committee  Thank you for asking that question. I'm not an expert in endangered species listings, but my understanding of it is that the proposal to list this was published in the Gazette and there was a one-month public comment period. We had one month to do our legislative review and res

Fisheries committee  I'd like to jump in on that. I think the important thing here—I'm sure you can ask my friend the professor here about his technical terminology—is triage. You're looking at what will have the largest impact on your environment. In the west it might be cheatgrass, which increases

Fisheries committee  I would like to add to that. I think the key here is that eradication is almost impossible in most cases, once an invasive species gets established. There are some exceptions. If you have a lake that is very well defined, you can add rotenone to it and you can eradicate things on

Fisheries committee  On the other hand, there are some things that have to do with genetic engineering of a bacterium and things like that, which have potential. There have been a lot of bad examples of natural enemies being released, but there also have been some cases of things working. There are s