| Abstract/Description or Keywords |
As requested by Riverside Forest Products Ltd., Kelowna Division (Riverside); Gorman Bros. Lumber Ltd. (Gorman); and the Small Business Forest Enterprise Program, Penticton (the licensees), the Interior Watershed Assessment Procedure (IWAP) for the Powers Creek watershed has been updated from the November 1998 report to 2001. The IWAP update includes a summary of the 1998 IWAP, an office review of any work completed since 1998, field assessments of selected sites in the watershed, and recommendations for the development proposed in the forest development plan (FDP) update for the period of 2002 to 2006. The current assessment was conducted in accordance with the requirements of the Okanagan- Shuswap Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP) (refer to Appendix A for details). The objectives of this report are as follows: 1) Address the issues identified by the Watershed Assessment Committee (WAC) at the May 16, 2001 initial IWAP meeting; 2) Present the current condition of the watershed based on the field assessments conducted in August 2001; 3) Review the current five-year FDP in relation to the current watershed condition; 4) Discuss the potential hydrologic effects of the proposed development and provide recommendations; 5) Comply with the requirements of the Forest Practices Code Operational Planning Regulation that watershed assessments must be completed for community watersheds every three years and before submitting an FDP. The Powers Creek community watershed drains southeast into Okanagan Lake approximately two kilometers south of Westbank, BC (Figure 1). The watershed encompasses an area of 139 kmz ranging in elevation from 342 m at Okanagan Lake to 1,860m at the summit of Whiterocks Mountain. The Alocin Creek community watershed is 474 ha ranging in elevation from 1,500m at the Nicola Diversion Ditch to 1,600m at Tadpole Lake. Forest development in the Powers Creek watershed has taken place since approximately the mid-1940s. The majority of clear-cut harvesting in the upper portion of the watershed occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Approximately 30% of the watershed has been harvested. |
