Emergency Management schedules Okanogan River flood meeting

OKANOGAN – Water levels are rising in Osoyoos Lake, straddling United States/Canadian border between Osoyoos, British Columbia, and Oroville, Wash., and the Washington Department of Ecology (DOE) is issuing flood warnings for the Okanogan and Similkameen rivers as a result.
The Okanogan River is expected to exceed 19 feet by Saturday, May 12, and Okanogan County Emergency Management Manager Maurice Goodall has scheduled an Okanogan County Flood Meeting and conference call from 1:30-3 p.m., Thursday, May 10,  in the Commissioners Hearing Room at 123 N. Fifth Ave., in Okanogan, to discuss the threat. Those who cannot attend in person are invited to call the conference line at 605-468-8035, access code 7206#, to participate.
As the name Osoyoos, derived from an Okanagan Indian name that means “narrowing of the waters” implies, the lake’s level plays a major role in water levels in the Okanogan River.
“There is twice as much water coming into Lake Osoyoos than can exit,” said a DOE media release of May 7.
The DOE target is to maintain a lake water level between 911.5 and 912 feet from May through mid-September. Lake Osoyoos, 26 miles long, is fed by the far larger Okanagan Lake, 84 miles long, and snow runoff in the upper watershed raises water levels in the smaller border lake. Lake levels are already more than two feet above the upper limit.
“We are at 914.04 feet, up by a foot and a half since Friday (May 4),” said DOE spokesman Al Josephy last Monday. “Last year, which was the highest we recorded in more than a decade, we reached 914.87 on June 2.”
To contact Okanogan County Emergency Management, call 509-422-7209-6, or email em@co.okanogan.wa.us