Tom Shields Calls for Senior Governments to Help Fund Osoyoos Water and Sewer Upgrades

Former mayor says Highway 3 traffic places a regional and national burden on infrastructure paid for largely by local residents

Council candidate and former Osoyoos mayor Tom Shields says the community has outgrown the way its water and sewer infrastructure is funded.

In material provided to Osoyoos News, Shields argues that Osoyoos is no longer serving only its permanent population. Millions of vehicles travel through the community each year, he says, bringing visitors who stop for fuel, meals, accommodations and washrooms—all of which place additional demands on locally funded services.

His central proposal is that the federal and provincial governments should recognize that burden and help cover the capital cost of new water and sewer infrastructure.

“New sewer and water systems are needed ASAP,” Shields wrote.

He said Osoyoos should be treated more like communities situated along Highway 1, where senior governments contribute to infrastructure required by a major transportation corridor.

Shields proposes that the federal and provincial governments pay the capital costs of the required infrastructure, while Osoyoos residents continue paying appropriate user fees.

“Settling this issue is foremost to end the bad news of the huge tax increase,” he wrote. “It will allow us to get back to normal.”

A town serving far more than its population

Shields places much of his argument around the number of people who pass through Osoyoos compared with the number who live here.

He said provincial traffic counts recorded approximately 4.7 million vehicles on Highway 3 last year, while the Osoyoos border crossing handled roughly one million more. Based on those figures, he estimates that about six million vehicle movements brought traffic into the community.

Those numbers represent traffic volumes rather than necessarily six million separate vehicles or visitors, but Shields maintains that the overall pressure on Osoyoos is unmistakable.

He estimates that traffic can range from approximately 12,000 vehicles on a slower day to more than 25,000 on busy weekends. During major wildfire closures or disruptions on Highways 1 and 5, he said Highway 3 traffic can climb even higher.

“We are now servicing the travelling public,” Shields wrote.

That traffic, he argues, draws upon services supported by a permanent population of approximately 5,560 people. Travellers stop at local restaurants, gas stations, hotels and other businesses, with the resulting water and sewer demand ultimately flowing through municipal infrastructure.

Shields described Osoyoos as a “human-resource centre” for the travelling public, particularly for people arriving from the Lower Mainland and the West Kootenay.

He also noted that Highway 3 crosses an international waterway at Osoyoos Lake, which is shared by Canada and the United States.

Limited room to grow the tax base

Unlike communities with large areas available for outward expansion, Shields said Osoyoos faces firm geographic boundaries.

The United States border lies to the south, Anarchist Mountain to the east and Osoyoos Indian Band lands and Agricultural Land Reserve properties to the north. The golf course, industrial area and lands considered in discussions surrounding a possible national park are situated to the west.

Shields argues that those constraints limit the amount of new development available to expand the municipal tax base.

He also estimates that approximately 95 per cent of Osoyoos businesses are locally operated “mom-and-pop” enterprises employing people from the community. Large infrastructure costs, in his view, cannot simply be passed along without consequences for residents and small businesses.

Water use and manganese

Shields connects the present infrastructure debate to increasing water demand.

He said concerns involving manganese became more prominent around 2019, at roughly the same time residents were being asked to reduce outdoor watering. More recently, the Town has moved toward universal water metering as part of its effort to manage consumption and better understand system use.

Shields questions whether municipal population figures alone provide an honest picture of that demand.

If thousands of people are entering or passing through Osoyoos on a busy summer day, he argues, then the community’s water and sewer systems are serving considerably more than the residents whose property taxes and utility bills support them.

He also raised concerns about the broader Okanagan watershed, including the historical effects of septic systems and nutrients entering the lake system from communities farther north.

Because Osoyoos Lake is an international body of water, its levels and water quality are also subjects of cross-border interest through the International Joint Commission.

From 1,800 residents to a regional destination

Shields first came to Osoyoos in 1978, when he recalls the town having a population of approximately 1,800, with the surrounding rural population bringing the wider area to roughly 6,100.

The waterfront looked very different then. A white packinghouse, railway tracks and a station occupied land near what is now the turnaround at Gyro Park. The road now known as 45th Street was a lightly used gravel road, and the Osoyoos Indian Band operated a seasonal campground that opened for the May long weekend and closed after Labour Day.

Shields also points to Osoyoos’s early use of reclaimed wastewater as an example of the community solving infrastructure problems creatively.

Treated and aerated effluent from lagoons on the west bench was used to irrigate the golf course as it expanded from nine to 18 holes. Reclaimed water was also used at Desert Park, where volunteers helped clear sagebrush, install irrigation and prepare the field.

By 1982, following the incorporation of already-developed areas requiring sewer and water service, the community had become the Town of Osoyoos with a population of approximately 3,200, according to Shields.

He describes the following decades as a period in which Osoyoos gradually shifted from an agricultural town into a tourism, wine and transportation centre.

A record of promoting Osoyoos

Two archival newspaper clippings supplied by Shields offer a glimpse of his earlier time as mayor.

A September 9, 1992, Vancouver Sun report described Shields standing beside the stage during an outdoor concert attended by an estimated 30,000 people—about 10 times the town’s population at the time.

The concert was presented as a major gamble for the community. Osoyoos was being hurt by cross-border shopping and difficulties in the fruit industry, and Shields hoped large summer concerts could bring visitors and new economic activity to town.

A separate Penticton Herald article recorded another moment from his mayoralty: Osoyoos being named the most beautiful small town in Canada through the Communities in Bloom program.

The article said judges were impressed by the community’s position between irrigated Okanagan orchards and the desert environment to the south. It also highlighted Osoyoos’s use of drought-conscious landscaping and reclaimed wastewater for irrigation.

Shields was reportedly attending the award ceremony on Parliament Hill when the result was announced.

Together, the clippings show a former mayor who spent much of his time trying to draw outside attention—and outside economic activity—to Osoyoos.

His latest argument turns that history around.

Osoyoos succeeded in becoming a destination and an important stop along Highway 3. Shields now says the community needs financial recognition for the infrastructure burden that came with that success.

The case Shields is putting before voters

Shields’s submission is not built around a long list of campaign promises. It is focused largely on one question: who should pay when infrastructure serving a major highway, tourism economy and international border community needs to be replaced?

His answer is that Osoyoos residents should pay their fair share through user fees, but they should not be left to finance the complete capital cost themselves.

The federal and provincial governments benefit from a functioning Highway 3 corridor. Travellers and commercial traffic depend on Osoyoos as a stopping point. Local businesses serve those visitors, while municipal systems handle the resulting water and wastewater demand.

Shields believes that makes the condition of Osoyoos’s infrastructure more than a purely local problem.

Whether senior governments would accept that argument—and what funding arrangement could realistically be negotiated—remains an open question.

Shields says making that case should now be one of the Town’s foremost priorities.