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Boundary Creek Times editorial - Oct. 24: Imagine that!

The work on the Kettle River Watershed Plan is important; of equal importance is that we pay attention to it.

Someone once said that looking after the environment should be easy—all you need to do is keep water at the top of your list of priorities and everything else will fall into place.

If we’re smart, we in the Boundary will seize the opportunity found in the work currently being done on the Kettle River Management Plan by Graham Watt (www.kettleriver.ca).

The work that Watt is doing is valuable. It’s providing us with essential background data that can be used as a foundation for informed discussion of priorities and policy going forward. More importantly it is helping identify our options.

Watt’s position isn’t going to last forever though. His reports will be written and his contract to oversee the development of a watershed management plan for the Kettle will end.

The development of the Kettle River Watershed Management Plan is arguably one of the most important pieces of work being done by the regional district at the moment.

What its’ influence will become is still unknown. Whether or not the watershed plan moves forward over the next decade will largely depend upon how, or even if, we as citizens insist that it be a priority for our political representatives.

We would be so much the richer if, somehow, our imaginations would be fired by the possibilities being identified at the watershed-planning table.

For instance—check out this video that Watt recently posted online: http://kettleriver.ca/2013/10/ bringing-salmon-back/

This is the story of work that’s been done in Washington State that has successfully helped sockeye salmon make a comeback in Osoyoos Lake and the south Okanagan.

Watt asks the question—could the Kettle once again see Pacific salmon grace its lower reaches?

Imagine that!