Gambles Pond within Albert McGowan Park in Kamloops. (Photo via City of Kamloops)

The City of Kamloops is asking people and pets to stay away from Gambles Pond at Albert McGowan Park, which has dried up due to ongoing drought conditions this year.

Acting Manager of Utilities, Dylan Scott, says it can damage the pond, which was designed to collect runoff and storm water in the Sahali-area.

“It is a storm water retention pond that just is a catchment area but we don’t actually push a lot of water into there or anything like that, so we do pretty much solely rely on the run off and precipitation to accumulate,” Scott told Radio NL.

“If it gets too high that’s where we pump but unfortunately yeah just due to drought conditions it has gone dry.”

Scott – who grew up in Kamloops and has been with the city since 2017 – says he can’t recall another instance in recent history where the pond went dry.

“I can’t speak to the historical lineage of it of way back to when it was originally created, but we’ve never had this concern,” Scott said.

“I didn’t grow up in that neighbourhood but I recall friends skating and playing around out in that are in Albert McGowan all through the winter. I think this is the first in quite some time at least.”

He says its unlikely that people will be able to skate on the pond – which is a popular habitat for a number of species of wildlife – this winter.

“We don’t have any fish in that cell or anything like that, it is just kind of a watering hole for different species that are coming by or may have made that area home,” Scott said.

“The bigger impacts are on the salmon habitats. Some of them are completely dry upstream from us.”

This was the first year where the Kamloops-area hit Level 5 on the BC Government’s drought level scale, which indicates that adverse impacts are almost certain. It saw the introduction of enhanced water restrictions in mid-August, restrictions which were lifted in early October.

The Kamloops area is currently at Drought Level 2.