VICTORIA — A new water-restriction order has been placed on the Bessette Creek area in the southern Interior of British Columbia, after the province deemed chinook salmon at risk from drought conditions. The B.C. Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship said severe drought conditions caused record low flows in Bessette Creek in early July, threatening the survival of spawning salmon. Bessette Creek, about 480 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, has been described by provincial conservation officials as a “critical concern” for salmon conservation, with low streamflows posing a particularly high threat. The province said significant voluntary water conservation efforts in the area have not provided the needed boost to water levels, prompting the ministry to issue a fish protection order on Friday that temporarily restricts water use for forage crops and certain mining and industrial purposes. The ministry said 131 water license holders in the Bessette Creek watershed must stop using water for irrigation, harvesting, greenhouses, nurseries and well-drilling, effective Friday. It said the Ministry of Agriculture and Food would help with claims involving crop failures or income declines. Kevin Boon, general manger of the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association, said the ministry had been working closely with them over summer, and they saw the order coming. “The thing for us is it’s late enough in the season that it had allowed them to schedule, so they were getting enough water to get by,” Boon said of ranchers. “So, it isn’t catastrophic the way it has been other years, so we’re accepting it quite well. Actually, it was expected.” Boon said he was on the phone with Water and Land Minister Randene Neill on Friday and she had applauded the ranchers’ co-operation. Boon said it was unclear how long the order would last, but farmers had enough water to get by. He said statistics from 2015 showed there were about 1,500 storage dams in B.C., two-thirds of them were managed and owned by ranchers. “I talk heavily about storing water, because if we don’t store it, we can’t manage it. We can’t turn the clouds on and off,” said Boon. “But when it hits the ground, if we can hold it, every spring we see a whole bunch rush by us and go to the ocean. If we can hold that back, so that we can let it go when we need it, we have a lot better chance of creating a balance on the landscape and in the watershed with that,” he added. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 28, 2026.
