Kelowna, B.C. – The Okanagan Basin Water Board held its Annual General Meeting Friday, August 10, at The Innovation Centre in Kelowna. The theme this year was “Preparing for the Future,” acknowledging the focus of the Water Board during the past year on preparing the region for a water future that includes drought and fires, as well as flooding.
“We chose our theme because it best describes the focus of our work this year,” explained OBWB Executive Director Anna Warwick Sears. “I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about climate change, which is affecting the weather in the Okanagan and exacerbating the impacts to our communities. There is a lot of uncertainty about how the weather patterns will play out, but we know that we are going to have more extreme events – floods, fires, and droughts. It’s not too late to reduce the impacts if we take climate change seriously.”