The City of Vernon announced Thursday that, once again this year, it will be discharging treated water from its sewage treatment plant into Okanagan Lake.
The city is defending the move. In a public statement, it said discharging into the lake or nearby watercourses is a common practice among Okanagan cities and the water that will be released “has been treated to protect the ecosystem within Okanagan Lake and its surrounding area.”
Typically, almost all of the treated water from the sewage treatment plant would go to a reservoir for use in irrigation.
The remaining two per cent goes directly to a local golf course which also uses the water for irrigation.
However, the city said weather conditions last year meant less water than usual was used from the reservoir and it is now nearly full.
The result, the city said, is that it must discharge some treated water from the sewage treatment plant into the lake.
The same thing happened last year.
In 2020, Vernon ended up releasing around 1.3 million cubic metres of treated water into Okanagan Lake over a four-month period, the city said.
Asked if the city expects the discharge into Okanagan Lake to become an annual occurrence, a spokesperson didn’t give a definitive answer but said the city hopes the 2021 irrigation program will draw down the reservoir to a more manageable level.
The city said the outflow is 60 m below the lake’s surface and at least 1.5 km from each shore.