Low water, algae concerns at Kelowna's Rotary Marsh

Ajouté : 2026-05-17

[00:00:02][music] >> As of May 1st, snowpack was only 30% in the Okanagan and it's starting to show.

[00:00:11]A Kelowna resident contacted Castanet because she was concerned about a build-up of algae here at Rotary Marsh Park along the Kelowna waterfront.

[00:00:21]Before, like in the beginning of spring, I noticed a little bit of algae here and there, spread out, but as you can see, it's really thick in some areas. My concern is um is the oxygen being taken from the water as the levels appear really low and that affecting the wetland here in the wildlife, like the turtles, the painted turtles, and and the fish that live here. Luckily, this is not a toxic form of algae. In fact, it's food for many of the birds and other water life. You've noticed that we've had very little precipitation this year, which has resulted in this marsh actually being quite low and that's sort of exacerbated the issue.

[00:01:00]Um the algae that you're seeing here basically has always been there, but it's been at the bottom of the marsh.

[00:01:05]So, as the water levels drop, the algae basically photosynthesize, creates oxygen, makes them buoyant, and they come to the surface, and that's what you're seeing here today. Believe it or not, the ducks and the turtles actually use that algae as part of their food source. So, it's actually a good thing for them. Still, the city is concerned about the dry weather and is constantly monitoring conditions in area ponds, streams, and in the lake. Uh blue-green algae is the one that we are of primary concern. Uh we haven't noticed high counts of that here, but we do monitor that every time that we get a report from algae anywhere on an outbreak anywhere on the lake. So, we just started our beach monitoring program, uh which we also look for algae in those areas, but you'll primarily see the algae in sort of detention ponds uh or in small areas of water where it accumulates over time and sort of gets warm. Uh so, we're monitoring all these areas, but But do encourage the public if they ever do notice algae and they're concerned about it, uh the province has a great resource called Algae Watch BC where people can learn more about it, compare some of the pictures that they've taken, and actually help report this so we can investigate these in the future. Unfortunately, unless it rains, there's not much the city can do to raise the water level in the marsh. For Castanet News in Kelowna, I'm Cindy White.