Nowell is the Local Reference Group Coordinator for the Upper Kootenay Hydrologic Region within the Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Framework Program. A communications professional with a background in the corporate world, Nowell sits as a Trustee on the Board of the Wasa Lake Land Improvement District.

For the past seven years he has taken the lead in monitoring and recording water levels at Wasa Lake and the Kootenay River. He has volunteered hundreds of hours building and maintaining a water database, and making it publicly available through the Columbia Basin Water Hub.