AnnouncedNot yet in force
Okanagan Groundwater and Water Wells
Okanagan groundwater: the valley’s water scarcity levels, set with the Syilx Okanagan Nation, drought orders, wells, and licences, dated and sourced.
From Mara Lake and Enderby to Osoyoos
Fourteen municipalities and thirteen electoral areas, in three regional districts.
- North Okanagan RDNO
- Enderby, Armstrong, Spallumcheen, Vernon, Coldstream, and Lumby, with Mara, Grindrod, Swan Lake, the BX, Silver Star, Lavington, and Cherryville.
- Central Okanagan RDCO
- Lake Country, Kelowna, West Kelowna, and Peachland, with Ellison, Joe Rich, and the Westside Road.
- South Okanagan RDOS
- Summerland, Penticton, Oliver, and Osoyoos, with Naramata, Okanagan Falls, Kaleden, the West Bench, and Anarchist Mountain.
The Similkameen, from Keremeos to Princeton, has its own page. The outlines are the Province’s legal boundaries, shown here in their populated part (Cherryville and the Monashee run off the right, the plateau off the left); the dots are the municipalities’ centres. Every figure on this page is drawn inside the full outlines.
The region guideChecked October 15, 2026
The Okanagan has 11,650 wells on the Province’s record, and where they are says what the ground is. On the valley floor from Okanagan Falls to Osoyoos, the river’s gravels give water a few dozen feet down, in volume. On the creek fans and benches, at Mission Creek, Lumby, Vernon, and Osoyoos, sand and gravel lies open at the surface. Under Kelowna, Vernon, and Spallumcheen, older gravels lie sealed beneath clay and till, under pressure. Above the lakes, at Naramata, West Kelowna, Lake Country, and Anarchist Mountain, a well goes into rock, to about three hundred feet for a few gallons a minute.
The North Okanagan, from Vernon to Enderby and Lumby, holds 44 per cent of the Okanagan’s wells and sees nearly two-thirds of its new ones, most of them in Spallumcheen and the electoral areas; the cities of Kelowna, Vernon, and Penticton see few. The numbers on this page are the Province’s, from every well on record inside the Okanagan’s outlines. A household well needs no BC groundwater licence; a well for irrigation, a business, or a water system does, and the record ties 915 of the Okanagan’s wells to a water licence.
The Okanagan on the recordAs of October 15, 2026
Half the Okanagan’s wells finish within 120 feet, and five in six new ones are household wells.
11,650wells on record in the Okanagan, every class and every year
114new water wells a year, the average of 2021 to 2025
16of those a year are non-domestic: irrigation, business, or a water system
120ftthe median finished depth; half the Okanagan’s wells are between 42 and 280 ft
12gpmthe median reported yield, in US gallons a minute; half are between 4 and 40
738wells record artesian conditions, 110 of them in Lake Country, 101 in Kelowna, and 100 in Vernon
| By community | Wells on recordWells | New a yearNew | New non-domestic a yearNon-dom. | Median depth | Median gpm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spallumcheen | 1,214 | 16 | 4 | 194 ft | 20 |
| Kelowna | 1,131 | 3 | under 1 | 61 ft | 25 |
| RDNO Electoral Area DLumby rural, Lavington, Trinity Valley | 998 | 14 | under 1 | 103 ft | 15 |
| RDNO Electoral Area FEnderby rural, Grindrod, Mara, Ashton Creek | 945 | 21 | 2 | 124 ft | 7 |
| RDOS Electoral Area COliver rural, Willowbrook, Gallagher Lake | 919 | 7 | 2 | 48 ft | 30 |
| RDOS Electoral Area AOsoyoos rural, Anarchist Mountain | 718 | 4 | under 1 | 263 ft | 12 |
| Lake CountryWinfield, Oyama | 668 | 5 | under 1 | 76 ft | 15 |
| RDNO Electoral Area CBX, Silver Star | 631 | 8 | 0 | 196 ft | 6 |
| RDCO Central Okanagan EastEllison, Joe Rich, Black Mountain rural | 620 | 7 | under 1 | 240 ft | 5 |
| RDOS Electoral Area IKaleden, Twin Lakes, Apex | 508 | 3 | under 1 | 196 ft | 10 |
| Vernon | 485 | 2 | under 1 | 73 ft | 11 |
| RDNO Electoral Area BSwan Lake, Commonage | 410 | 7 | 2 | 90 ft | 12 |
New wells and new non-domestic wells are yearly counts, the 2021 to 2025 average. The other fifteen hold the rest: West Kelowna, Osoyoos, Penticton, Oliver, Coldstream, Summerland, Peachland, Enderby, Armstrong, and Lumby, and the electoral areas of Okanagan Falls (RDOS Area D), the Westside Road (Central Okanagan West), Cherryville (RDNO Area E), the West Bench (RDOS Area F), and Naramata (RDOS Area E). “New a year” counts water supply wells by the year their construction ended; a well belongs to a community when its recorded point lies inside the community’s legal outline.
From the Province’s well records (GWELLS), the export of October 15, 2026: every well whose recorded point lies inside the Regional District of North Okanagan, the Regional District of Central Okanagan, or the Okanagan part of the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (Penticton, Summerland, Oliver, Osoyoos, and Electoral Areas A, C, D, E, F, and I; the Similkameen’s areas, Keremeos, and Princeton are on the Similkameen page). Depths, yields, and water levels are for water supply wells; yields are for the 7,416 wells with a yield on record. Filing a well’s record with the Province was voluntary before February 2016, so older wells are under-counted, and the newest year’s count rises as drillers’ reports arrive. Refreshed monthly; the record well by well comes to BCWaterWell.com when it opens. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia.
The Ground
Four kinds of ground, four kinds of well. The numbers are the Province’s, by aquifer type, with the places the Province’s aquifer records name.
The Valley Floor
The record’s medians
35 ftdepth50 gpmyield9 ftwater table
The Okanagan River’s sand and gravel from Vaseux Lake to Osoyoos Lake, and the creek deltas on Okanagan Lake at Westbank and Trout Creek: open to the surface and close to the water.
699 wells on record. Half are 18 to 60 ft deep and make 25 to 100 gpm.
The Benches and Fans
The record’s medians
53 ftdepth20 gpmyield19 ftwater table
Mission Creek at East Kelowna and Rutland, the Lumby and Trinity Valley gravels, the Osoyoos benches, south Vernon, and the Shuswap River valley at Spallumcheen: sand and gravel left by the creeks and the ice, with nothing over it but soil. The Province rates most of it highly vulnerable.
2,195 wells on record. Half are 25 to 114 ft deep and make 10 to 50 gpm.
The Confined Gravels
The record’s medians
124 ftdepth30 gpmyield36 ftwater level
Under Kelowna from the lake to Ellison, along BX Creek northeast of Vernon, from Vernon to Okanagan Lake, at Oyama and Coldstream, and in the lower Shuswap valley at Spallumcheen and Hullcar: older gravels sealed beneath clay and till, under pressure. The reason the record notes artesian conditions at hundreds of Lake Country, Kelowna, and Vernon wells.
1,778 wells on record. Half are 58 to 218 ft deep and make 10 to 85 gpm; 216 record artesian conditions.
The Hillsides and the Rock
The record’s medians
305 ftdepth5 gpmyield51 ftwater level
Naramata, Anarchist Mountain above Osoyoos, the west side of Okanagan Lake above West Kelowna, Ellison and the hills above Lake Country, and the slopes above Vernon and Enderby: fractured rock, with till over it. The deepest wells on the record and the smallest yields.
1,893 wells on record in the mapped rock aquifers. Half are 202 to 443 ft deep and make 2 to 12 gpm.
How the columns were drawn: by the Province’s subtype for the aquifer each well is correlated to; the first column is the Province’s large-river and deltaic aquifers, the second every other unconfined sand and gravel. 4,838 of the Okanagan’s water supply wells carry no mapped aquifer, 4,797 with none recorded and 41 marked by the Province as not correlated; they are in the totals above and in none of the four columns.
The Aquifers Under the Okanagan
The Province has mapped about 130 aquifers under the Okanagan. The twenty with the most wells on record inside it, named from the Province’s records.
| No. | Name | Where | Kind | VulnerabilityVuln. | Quality concern | Wells in the OkanaganWells |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 255 | North of Tug Lake to Vaseux Lake | — | Unconfined sand and gravel, river | High | Local | 381 |
| 467 | Mission Creek | East Kelowna and Rutland area | Unconfined sand and gravel, creek | High | — | 333 |
| 464 | Greater Kelowna | Below Kelowna to Ellison Lake | Confined sand and gravel | Low | — | 322 |
| 349 | Northeast of Vernon along BX Creek | — | Confined sand and gravel | Low | — | 255 |
| 193 | Osoyoos West | West Osoyoos | Unconfined sand and gravel, outwash | High | Regional | 254 |
| 1153 | Spallumcheen Confined | Lower Shuswap River Valley | Confined sand and gravel | Moderate | — | 242 |
| 254 | Osoyoos Lake to southwest of Tug Lake | — | Unconfined sand and gravel, river | High | Local | 240 |
| 316 | Lumby Upper | Lavington to Lumby | Unconfined sand and gravel, creek | High | — | 219 |
| 298 | Naramata | — | Fractured crystalline bedrock | Moderate | Isolated | 219 |
| 111 | Spallumcheen Unconfined | Lower Shuswap River Valley | Unconfined sand and gravel, outwash | Moderate | — | 209 |
| 936 | East of Osoyoos, Anarchist Mountain | — | Fractured crystalline bedrock | Moderate | — | 161 |
| 304 | West side of Okanagan Lake, west of Kelowna | — | Fractured sedimentary rock | Moderate | — | 155 |
| 351 | Northeast of Vernon and to the north of BX Creek | — | Fractured crystalline bedrock | Low | — | 151 |
| 319 | Trinity Valley | North of Lumby | Unconfined sand and gravel, creek | High | — | 134 |
| 194 | Osoyoos East | — | Unconfined sand and gravel, outwash | High | Regional | 129 |
| 471 | West of Ellison Lake | — | Fractured crystalline bedrock | Moderate | — | 116 |
| 347 | South Vernon Confined | Vernon to Okanagan Lake | Confined sand and gravel | Low | — | 114 |
| 462 | Bellevue Fan | Upper Mission in south Kelowna | Unconfined sand and gravel, fan | Low | — | 112 |
| 1191 | Central Kelowna | Mission Creek north to Ellis Lake | Confined sand and gravel | Moderate | — | 109 |
| 472 | Southeast of Ellison Lake | — | Fractured crystalline bedrock | Moderate | — | 108 |
Vulnerability is the Province’s rating of how easily what is on the surface reaches the water; quality concern is the Province’s own field, and a dash means it records none. Many of the Okanagan’s aquifer records carry a number and no name; for those the Province’s location stands in the name’s place. Names and locations are the Province’s, with its shorthand spelled out and “Aquifer” left off a name. Wells are counted inside the Okanagan’s outlines; the Province’s record counts the whole aquifer, so its figures run a little higher. 4,903 of the Okanagan’s wells carry no aquifer on the record, and 42 are marked by the Province as not correlated to any. Each number opens the Province’s record; the Wire’s own reading of each aquifer comes with BCWaterWell.com.
Drilling Here
What a new well in the Okanagan usually involves, and what moves its price. The number itself depends on the site.
Of the 1,177 water supply wells drilled in the Okanagan since 2016, the record gives a method for most: 887 by air rotary rig, 157 by cable tool, 83 driven, and 35 by dual rotary. Where the record notes the depth to rock, half the Okanagan’s wells meet it within 35 ft. A well in sand and gravel is cased in steel to the water-bearing bed, with a screen set in the gravel to let water in and keep sand out. On the hillsides the casing is set to rock and the hole continues open below it, and the water comes from whatever fractures the hole crosses. In the confined gravels under Kelowna, Lake Country, and Vernon the record notes artesian conditions at 216 wells: a well into a confined bed may flow at the surface.
Four things move the price more than anything else: how deep the water is, whether the hole is in gravel or rock, how much casing and screen the ground demands, and whether the rig can reach the spot. In the Okanagan the first of those runs from a few dozen feet on the valley floor to several hundred on the hillsides, which is why the number for your property needs your property: the estimate form asks for what a driller needs to give one, and nothing a driller does not.
A household well needs no BC groundwater licence. A well for irrigation, a business, or a water system does, and a licence is for the use of the water, not the hole. The Licensing section carries the rules.
The Rules That Reach the Okanagan
Province-wide rules apply everywhere; these are the ones with a local edge.
The building permit and the subdivision. Each municipality issues its own building permits, and the three regional districts, North Okanagan (RDNO), Central Okanagan (RDCO), and Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS), issue them in their electoral areas; each has its own rule for a house on a well (a flow test, a water sample, an engineer’s report, or nothing) and its own rule for a new lot that will draw on a well. One page for each authority, read from its bylaws and dated, as each is written:
RDNORDCORDOSKelownaWest KelownaLake CountryPeachlandVernonColdstreamArmstrongSpallumcheenEnderbyLumbyPentictonSummerlandOliverOsoyoos
Water scarcity levels. The Okanagan is one of the Province’s 2026 pilot watersheds for water scarcity levels, set jointly by the Syilx Okanagan Nation and the Province of BC through the nx̌ʷʔulaʔxʷ Management Committee for five Okanagan units. The level, and the Province’s drought level for the basin, are on the Drought & Supply page each week of the season, with any order that follows.
Licences. The record ties 915 of the Okanagan’s wells to a water licence, and 16 of its new wells a year are drilled for irrigation, a business, or a water system. The Licensing section carries the rules, and the changelog below carries what has moved.
What Changed
Entries in the BC Groundwater Changelog that name the Okanagan, newest first. Province-wide changes apply here too, and the full changelog has them.
Proposed
Announced
In Force
Published
Active
Superseded
Defeated
Wires
Wires and Case Notes about the Okanagan.
Drought & SupplyOct 12, 2026
BC Drought Levels Drop, but Okanagan Water Scarcity Remains High
The Province’s October 8 ratings put no BC basin above drought Level 2, but water scarcity is still High in the Okanagan, the Nicola, and the Similkameen. A lower rating doesn’t refill a well.
Where to Go Next
Services from the Wire’s team and its partners.
Get the BC Groundwater Wire
The Wire’s Monthly Briefing is emailed at 6:00 am on the first Tuesday, and a dispatch only when something urgent happens. Unsubscribe any time.
BC Groundwater WireWritten from inside BC’s groundwater trade.