Welcome to Dry February: You’re probably going to feel the need for a good stiff drink when you realize just how dry things are likely to be in Alberta this year!
The United Conservative Government appears to have finally cottoned on to the fact the province, which relies on melting snow and rain for all of its water, is facing a major drought this spring and summer.
Rivers and reservoirs throughout Alberta are at or near historic lows. So is snowpack.
So, yes, Dry February is almost certainly going to be followed by dry March, dry April, dry May, dry June and dry July.
By dry August, the whole province will probably so dry that “as dry as Cardston” will take on an entirely new meaning!
Better late than never, one supposes, Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz said in a news release Wednesday that the government has created a “Drought Command Team” to get “major water licence holders to strike water-sharing agreements in the Red Deer River, Bow River and Old Man River basins.”
The Command Team – oh my, these Conservatives do love their faux military terminology, don’t they? – was supposed to get to work yesterday.
“This effort will be the largest water-sharing negotiation to have ever occurred in Alberta’s history,” Ms. Schulz boasted.
“If a severe drought occurs,” the release went on – although, barring a miracle, there is no if about it – “these agreements would see major users use less water to help others downstream.”
Possible translation: We’re all going to be asked to do without baths and keep our showers short if there’s going to be enough water for fracking! And if you’re a farmer, better start lobbying now for relief from Ottawa – which the United Conservative Party will doubtless be blaming for the drought soon, if they’re not already.
I’m not kidding about that, by the way. As the Globe and Mail’s Emma Graney reported in a tweet thread Tuesday, Municipal Affairs Minister Ric MicIver told participants in a telephone town hall that day for water licence holders that the government “might also have citizens take shorter showers, ensure they have low-flow toilets.” (Whether his tone was serious or otherwise isn’t clear from Ms. Graney’s thread.)
Mr. McIver also generously said “he’s prepared to *not* turn his yard sprinkler on all summer to make sure livestock, crops and people get water,” Ms. Graney noted, a sacrifice she seemed to find laudable.
One wonders how being asked to do that would go over with the United Conservative Party’s conspiracy-minded, Q-adjacent base, though.
I’m also not kidding that the always thirsty fracking industry wants even more water.
Indeed, the notorious Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has been lobbying the Alberta Government for months to be allowed to water down the Water Act to allow its members to engage in the environmentally dangerous practice of transferring water between major basins.
Climate change? Don’t expect that to be part of the discussion, at least in Alberta. As Ms. Schulz said during the town hall, this is “a societal issue, not an environmental issue.” Agriculture Minister R.J. Sigurdson also took part in that event – which appears to have been more or less ignored by Alberta media.
Meanwhile in Edmonton
We’ve already been practicing water rationing in the Edmonton area, where we’re still allowed to take showers, but only if they’re short, and we’re not allowed to use our dishwashers, thanks to an equipment breakdown at an Epcor Utilities Inc. water treatment plant on Monday.
Need to wash your car? If you live in Edmonton this week, that’s probably the first good reason you’ve had to drive to Red Deer in a couple of years!
According to Epcor, several pumps at the treatment plant went out at once because their electrical wiring wasn’t up to snuff, resulting in a clear-water shortage in Edmonton, Sherwood Park, St. Albert, Stony Plain, Spruce Grove, Leduc, Beaumont and Fort Saskatchewan.
Why Edmonton’s privatized water system is so fragile it can’t operate properly if more than one pump stops working is an interesting question. Don’t expect answers to it any time soon.
Epcor says it’s making progress on fixing the pumps and has promised we should be able to flush sewers and wash cars again by Sunday. Meanwhile, though, we’re getting some practice for next summer.
Seeing as Epcor is a private-sector company, naturally one of the big commentary brains at the Edmonton Sun-Journal blamed its problems on the fact it used to be in the public sector. One wonders how he would explain the obvious deficiencies of Postmedia, which has never had the excuse of being publicly owned.
But, I digress …
Getting back to those negotiations led by the Command Team, a big problem is that Alberta’s water licensing scheme means, as Ms. Schulz put it in a letter to the province’s major water licence holders, they will have to “be asked to voluntarily take less water to ensure there is water for as many users as possible.” (Emphasis added.)
That’s because, as University of Calgary Law Professor Emeritus Nigel Bankes explained on social media, there is “absolutely nothing” in the Water Act that allows the minister to prescribe terms of a water-sharing agreement.
Brace yourselves for fire
Because of the drought, Albertans will also need to brace themselves for more, and more intense, fires this summer.
In an open letter to the government Wednesday, the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association called urgently for disclosure of Alberta’s wildfire preparedness strategy, if indeed one exists.
Expressing their concern the drought means Alberta will see “a wildfire season mirroring last year’s devastating events,” the association warned that the UCP policy of relying on municipalities to pay the freight “is not sustainable.”
“There is a growing concern among Fire Chiefs across the province of the lack of communication of what the plan is, allocation of funds compared to previous years and plan for the recruitment and deployment of firefighters and equipment,” the letter said.
“It is imperative to have a clear, well-resourced, and collaborative strategy that involves all levels of government to effectively manage and mitigate the risks of wildfires in Alberta,” the letter said.
Premier Danielle Smith, however, is focusing on issues that appeal more to the UCP base than boring old water – like bullying trans kids and ensuring Albertans have access to plastic straws.
Our water comes to us as a downstream resource from the eastern slopes of the mountains. These are currently being poisoned by old coal mine run off. Our government is too stupid, incompetent and myopic to even try to address that fact, let alone the doom of real climate change consequences!
You are thinking of the Elk River in BC. Coal mine runoff is not an issue in the Bow or Oldman Basins at this time as Selenium levels are below limits.
I’m being a fairly good citizen, holding off doing laundry and not washing the car even though it needs it. Of course this current water situation is supposed to be over soon when the mechanical or electrical problems with the pumping system are fixed. It may not be so easy if there is a summer drought that lasts longer.
Of course, mechanical or electrical problems can happen even to well run companies, so I’m not too upset with EPCOR yet. However, people may not be so forgiving in a more drawn out situation, particularly if some heavy water users are allowed to operate normally while others are restricted. I can see it becoming a potentially bigger problem in rural Alberta, particularly if the government pressures agricultural users to cut back, while being more lenient on the energy industry. The up until now loyal rural UCP base might not respond very well to this.
Add to this, the UCP is really psychologically unprepared for climate change and does not seem to be preparing Albertans for this either. So perhaps, instead of the winter of discontent, it may turn out to be a summer of discontent. We may recall Kenney had one of those a while back and in the end it cost him his job. So Smith and her happy gang might want to start to plan more seriously for what could happen, rather than stumbling towards possible disaster half asleep.
Now we know why Marlaina Premier needed a giant thing to distract Albertans. That thing had to be huge, like her water straw/catheter tube. A full-bore attack on trans kids ought to do it! And the thing being we’re being distracted from is water! The subliminal signs are all there in the photo. True, that straw is better than drinking from a glass: no risk of “alien eggs”.
Dear Alice, this province has fallen down the Republican rabbit hole, on Groundhog Day, no less. I won’t tell you my joke about seven rabbits.
This is bad, very bad. Extreme water rationing for you and me is on the way. Last year’s very bad wildfire season will be surpassed by a no-good, rotten wildfire season. Demand a fast-food plastic straw and suck every last drop of water while you can, because it might be.
Coincidentally, the Abuse of Trans Kids’ Rights for the Distraction of Society policy will be available in the fall for ministerial decree, as fire season is winding down and the fall rains arrive. Fingers crossed folks, hopes and prayers, yada-yada!
Alberta is crossing the Rubicon. Doomy, isn’t it?
P.S. Rick McIver, what a hero? Did you know that people who took the City of Calgary’s Yard Smart program back when you were an alderman rarely turn on their sprinklers at all? Shame you didn’t know about this program. Participants don’t feel the need to boast about it, either. They want to conserve water. They use water barrels to collect rain from rooftops, add home compost to their soil for water retention and some don’t even have greedy water-hogging lawns. Real heroes!
I noted something curious in today’s big reveal on transgender issues by dotty dangerous Daniel. To wit, only 25 percent of sex change operation patients are 18 to 25 in Alberta. Chantel Hebert made the obvious comment, therefore no Albertans under 18 are undergoing sex changes. Daniel is therefore abridging younger Albertan’s rights for no reason. The other thing I couldn’t believe was permission slips for sex-Ed. Really, do the Un Contraception Party understand that no sex Ed correlates to increased teen pregnancy rates. This whole business strikes me as creating a whole bunch of issues, where few existed before. Dani is flame grilling a Whopper nothing burger.
Finally, child welfare services are barely functioning, now dotty Daniel is asking the department to enforce an apparently contradictory standard about trans and LGBT youth, pity the social workers trying to untie such a policy knot.
And between the sappy music, Danni’s glottal throat noises – faux empathy and histrionics, I was pretty disgusted by the end of the newser.
Fracking, crypto mining, coal mining (or pay the Ausie’s how many billion?)
Maybe all that lobbying has paid off. Is that the 30% reduction in red tape?
and of course, completely coincidental that Epcor has an “equipment breakdown “.
I suppose Marlaina didn’t want to have to regurgitate the same story as with the power shortage, and again Edmonton —Take That!!! and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Nigel Bankes — I don’t suppose you meant–there WAS nothing in the ‘water act’ that allowed the minister to prescribe terms of a water- sharing agreement , until now. But with the 30% cut in red tape…..
…..and win, win, everyone is distracted by the little dervish/dust devil picking on kids.
Classic d’rump move: deflect, distract, disengage; and be on to the next topic, seemingly! But in the meantime while all eyes are on the shiny new item, behind the scenes the initial topic is going on as planned.
IMO, this has been working very well for the last 6yrs, thanks to social media sound bites, aka: attention span of a gnat. Why was the lockdown so hard for so many people? I believe it was withdrawal, Not from people not talking to each other, they weren’t anyway, it’s just that they were missing the spin of the dial, all those bright flashing lights, oooh, jackpot!! you’ve won $1, try your luck again!
I’ve heard it a number of times recently about what a good speaker PP is. Sorry- NOT !! The same short, repeated sound bites are just 2 -7’s and a joker, asking you for more money. Step right up folks, Canada is broken and only I can fix it…Hallelujah!
Good Grief!! I feel a time out calling.
I believe the UCP are way too late on the issue of addressing the severity of the drought. Something was wrong three years ago, in 2021. Trees have been dying off, because of it being so warm and dry. They become a perfect kindling source. Farmers are having a hard time planting and growing crops, because there has been so little precipitation. Whatever snow we did get, had little body to it, and it melted rapidly. I doubt that this situation will abate, anytime soon. More devastating wildfires, and more crop failures are on the horizon.
The tree die-off is happening on private and public property, worse in some places than others. If anyone thinks the non-stop heavy smoke for months during the growing season doesn’t impact plants, think again. It’s pollution and pollution is not a positive growth factor for trees or crops. Add in drought and they become sick and vulnerable to pests. Like some sick science fiction, are we ready for Return of the Giant Locusts?
The latest USDA crop production report for the 2023 crop year indicates that wheat production per acre in Prairie Canada fell by seven percent. The acreage planted actually increased by six percent. So, this is a very large net-loss of grain production from one of the few areas on the planet that produces a surplus and usually supplies about 20% of the world’s wheat and barley supplies.
The government should be looking at additional storage beyond expansion of the off stream Chin and Snake Lake reservoirs. The Bow needs a new reservoir upstream of Calgary for flood control and storage, and another downstream of Bassano at Eyremore to maintain flows so that BRID and EID can divert more consistently. The hurdles to move forward with additional on stream reservoirs are likely insurmountable under current federal environmental legislation and the obstructive duty to consult First Nations.
Doug, perhaps instead of stealing more farm and ranch land or flooding existing parks as some have proposed, it might be more prudent consider some alternatives.
Hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas formations comes to mind. That process effectively eliminates millions of tonnes of fresh water a year from the water cycle and violates the concept of sustainable development IMHO. The AB NDP Rural Caucus called for that at Party conventions and were shut down.
In other dry jurisdictions, covering irrigation canals with solar panels to limit evaporative loss is being tried, and the Southern Irrigation Districts already have a program to line irrigation canals to stop seepage loss.
It might also be sensible to stop logging the trees in the foothills watershed – the trees which actually conserve water and help moderate stream flows. Fixing up the coal exploration roads on the east-slopes where all our water comes from is another overdue action to conserve our wildlands.
I’m sure there are many other alternatives to examine before wrecking more land and water courses with dugouts and dams and further souring the relations between rural landowners, First Nations and Edmonton.
Virtually no hydraulic fracturing occurs in the South Saskatchewan Basin, so that is a red herring.
The irrigation districts have invested and continue to invest in lining canals and replacing smaller ones with pipelines to reduce seepage. They have hit the point of diminishing returns.
Calgary is upstream of the irrigation diversions so more upstream storage is the only solution.
Doug: Fracking affects the total water cycle and it does not matter where it takes place – so, it is not a red herring. Last week the Mountain View Regional Water Services Commission banned fracking operations from using water from its treatment plant on the banks of the Red Deer River, and it about time for the province to ban that use of water entirely.
I did point out the Irrigation Districts were putting conservation measures in. However, when it comes to water conservation, we are a very long way from a point of diminishing returns as just about every other dry-land jurisdiction in the world can show us.
You did not accept the point about re-forestation and conservation on the eastern slopes. Many hunters, fishers, and others called for the ending of forestry on the eastern slopes in the 1970s. In retrospect, that was the best time to have such a policy and now is the second-best time.
Speaking of diminishing returns, are you advocating building dams and reservoirs upstream from Calgary to contain 1,000-year floods which may or may not happen again? How many parks and how much forest and grassland have to be destroyed for that? It might be more cost-effective for the City of Calgary to protect its own infrastructure on its own land rather than parasiting any further on the lands of farmers, ranchers, and First Nations.
First in time, first in line.
That’s Albaturda’s water strategy. Period!
There has never been a sharing agreement. Ever!
Good luck Calgary. As the Peyto Glacier melts so does your water supply. Floods in the late spring, trickles for the rest of the year. Until it stops completely. If you got kids in school it will stop in their lifetime.
And fires? It’s already too late. Y’all pissed away 20 some years of FireSmart funds and ideas. But no one in the decision-making capacity even believes in climate change. So they’re all set to fight fires like they did in the 70’s. They can’t understand the meteorological characteristics of today’s fires. They couldn’t identify current fire danger or risk if it it them on the ass.
Best just kiss it goodbye.
If y’all want more than a snowball’s chance you got to get rid of the morons in the ledge and get someone in with a clue about the world in 2024. And it ain’t Notley.
I wonder how much the TBA government will end up spending to replace the years of fire fighting experience and infrastructure that they got rid of? I’m sure the TBA connected benefactor corporations will be thrilled with that new business.
Wasn’t bullying trans kids supposed to take care of all this?
Very laudable effort on Mr. McIver’s part to conserve a scarce resource, but I assume he’ll still be allowed to water that gin blossom. It’ll be interesting, and frightening, to see just how far these clowns will ride their anti-Ottawa campaign and at who’s cost.
Hard to believe that this governing bunch is really as stupid as their pronouncements in fact proclaim. It has been known since the mid 1850’s that CO2 is a heat trapping molecule, but maybe all the homeschooling has yet to catch up!!
A point of clarification. The City of Edmonton is Epcor’s sole shareholder and appoints its Board of Directors. Epcor operates at arms length from the City but it is not privately owned.
John: With sincere respect, I don’t believe for a minute the ownership of the shares is meaningful. It’s the existence of shares that is the issue. I suppose we could split hairs over the definition of private sector versus public sector, or the meaning of privatized, but the obvious fact is that Edmonton City Council chose Epcor’s current structure in significant part to allow it to function as a completely private company (encouraged, of course by the Klein Conservatives’ marketization scheme) as well as to insulate elected representatives from bad or unpopular self-interested decisions made by their newly privatized company. Private is as private does. DJC
Epcor shares do not trade on an exchange so it is not a public company. That does not make it a private company as it is 100% government owned, much like BC Hydro, ICBC and Hydro Quebec.
Doug: I have already responded to this point. It’s a private-sector company irrespective of the current ownership of its shares. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. DJC
So what is BC Hydro then?
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/electricity-alternative-energy/electricity/iepr/iepr_regulatory_approach_for_bc_hydro.pdf
Excellent article about the oil industry’s ability to use water with impunity. Article does not mention the worrying drop in the overall water table underground. Anyone drilling a well will tell you that well depths are much deeper than they used to be. In homestead days, water wells were quite shallow. Now after 70 years of oil industry activity, the water table is much lower.
Due to geology, the water table in much of Alberta is continuous with the rivers. During droughts, the water table drops with the rivers as the rivers drop, irrespective of human activity.
Even if our government won’t acknowledge it, for decades climate scientists have warned that climate change will bring droughts and fires to western Canada. It really does seem incredibly ironic, then, that the Alberta Government should have to deal with the consequences of climate change while it is led by someone who is possibly the most vocal climate change denying premier we have ever had.
And the irony continues. If water lease holders cannot be convinced to voluntarily reduce their water consumption, it will be communities downstream that will suffer the most from the resulting low water levels. In my mind, then, the biggest victim will be Medicine Hat, which is downstream from both the Old Man and Bow watersheds, and our beloved premier’s constituency. Climate change destruction seems to follow Danielle Smith, who was also MLA in Highwood when it suffered some serious flooding in 2013. Karma can be so cruel.
(On the topic of 2013 flooding, readers may recall that the same time Calgary and High River dealt with flooding, so too did southern Germany, when the Danube overflowed its banks. I had the good fortune of cycling beside the Danube River this past fall, and I can report that 10 years after the flood, construction of new flood control berms is well underway beside the Danube. Meanwhile, here in Alberta, I understand politicians still have not been able to decide where to construct an overflow reservoir.)
I wonder what consideration will be given to the folks in Saskatchewan.
Already covered by https://www.ppwb.ca/about-us/what-we-do/1969-master-agreement-on-apportionment/schedule-a
Half of the water that originates in AB must be passed on to SK during the calendar year as measured at the confluence with the Red Deer River, which is just east of the SK border. SK has massive storage at Lake Diefenbaker, which evens out flows between seasons and across years.
Thanks – just what I’ve been looking for.
See the Terms of Union for both provinces—they confederated on the same day in 1905. These terms include something about river water that’s getting more interesting every day.
Speaking of plastic straws, as I have driven between Sylvan Lake and Red Deer over the past 4 years I have observed very large diesel-powered pumps pushing Red Deer River water through miles of 10-inch plastic pipes from the river to multi-hole hydraulic fracturing sites to produce oil. A few years previously north-west of Red Deer, a fracking company dug out a quarter section of land, lined it with plastic and filled with river water for fracking. All the water used for fracking is heavily contaminated with chemicals and never returns to the water cycle.
The UCP needs to remember the history of the middle east is really just a history of war over fresh water. So, in the immortal words of Dirty Harry, one might ask Ricky McIver or Ms. Schulz as they continue to pretend fracking is still a legitimate use of fresh water, “are you feeling lucky?” Given Epcor’s failures, there are reasons the privatizing Alberta Liberals are political history in Alberta.
Well, now that Queen Danielle and the UCP have all the plastic straws they would ever need, maybe their plan is to build a plastic aquaduct from Hudson’s Bay to Alberta. Of course, Manitoba may have something to say about that. I guess Calgary CONs will have to start a provincial party there to get their own way. Call it the Manitoba Party because that Saskatchewan Party went so well.
In any case, it’s getting harder to blame Trudeau. What? He controls the weather, too?! He truly is an all-powerful Dr. Evil.
Salt water downhill is not of much use
When *Fort* Mac went up in smoke, likely due to ignorant off road UCP punks with hot exhausts, the NDP acted quickly and effectively. Our Dani, on the other hand, has her dalliance of fancy with the most odious of useless addendums! Contrast? Heaven forfend!
POGO: Rachel Notley led a government. Danielle Smith leads a campaign machine. DJC
It occurs to me a better name for the UCP might be the Distractions. Given there skillful ability to play shell games with Alberta’s electorate successfully and so well.
Anyone see Andy Fastow floating around here recently?
(cough,cough,Enron,cough,cough)
Anyone…?
Mr. McIver’s comment (to) “make sure livestock, crops and people get water” conveniently leaves out instream flow needs. To heck with any consideration for the ecosystem component of our watersheds. Economic needs first always with this bunch.
“this is “a societal issue, not an environmental issue.””
All of the costs, or negative spillovers associated with an infinite increase in GDP growth (as a questionable standard of living measure) are unsurprisingly and conveniently left unexplored, as are the apparent (apparent in the minds of the faithful rubes and true believer ideologues alike) constraints imposed by the physical realities themselves.
That is for example, “A man from the State of Chu was selling spears and shields. He boasted about his shield, saying “It is so tough that nothing can pierce it.” He then boasted about his spear, saying, “It is so sharp that it can pierce anything.”Someone asked him, “What will happen if you pierce your shield using your spear?” The man was speechless. A spear that can pierce anything and a shield that can be pierced by nothing cannot exist at the same time.”
cf.,
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-population-danielle-smith-high-speed-rail-analysis-1.7013363
Correction: “(apparent in the minds of the faithful rubes and true believer ideologues alike)”, should read “as opposed to being unclear, or occluded in the minds . . . ”
Sorry for any confusion.
“ livestock, crops and people get water” – in this statement from McIver, Albertans can foresee the priority order of water restrictions. First, take care of industry and business; then, the people will get the sludge from the bottom of reservoirs, lakes and rivers, if anything is left. Hmm – could be a good time to start selling water filtration systems!
Some questions have been asked in this thread about downstream users, and water leases. Here is (I hope) some simple background to the situation.
It is important to keep in mind that in Alberta, as in all of Canada and most of the USA, water comes under English law, in that no one can ‘own’ water, and flowing streams must be allowed to pass to downstream users in the same amount and quality as it entered a property (with some controlled uses). This is not the case in Western US States that were once Spanish, where water can be owned, and indeed claimed, like a mineral resource, and the upstream user can divert or use all there is on his shore, and the person across the river or stream likewise, and so on and on downstream, until there is nothing left (think Colorado River for an example).
Beyond that there are agreements for the 3 major watersheds that cross Alberta’s provincial boundaries (Hudson Bay, Arctic Ocean and Mississippi), as outlined below. These are monitored by federal agencies.
https://albertawater.com/alberta-s-transboundary-water-agreements/
The St. Mary / Milk agreement is Canada’s first international one, and was designed to prevent a threat by US interests over a century ago to divert all the water from the St. Mary to the Milk River to be used in the US after it re-entered the States.
Groundwater reserves are dropping in aquifers across the continent. It is important to recall that most groundwater is effectively a non-renewable resource, as it takes thousands of years to accumulate what can be pumped out annually. It is also a fragile resource as any pollution to groundwater is permanent; it can not be cleaned out.
Finally, fracking and oil sands. Fracking involves injecting mixed chemicals and water (often potable water) underground to both crack the substrata and release oil, and replace it with water. The water is polluted, and non-recoverable, and the process often destroys existing groundwater resources wth chenicals and released gases. It is indeed the ‘strip mining’ of oil fields to extract the last remnants of oil, and is a huge waste of potable water.
Some of the processes of extraction of oil sands uses water or steam injected into the substrata to heat or force bitumen to the surface, mixed with the water. This is then extracted, and the contaminated water is stored where it can re-enter the water-cycle by evaporation (of course this is a gross simplification).
The point is, however, that neither fracking or steam/water extraction can be done without large amounts of water, most of which is lost from further use.
Lots of misinformation:
-not much fracking occurs in the South Saskatchewan Basin. Most fracking is in the Montney, which is in the much better watered Peace Basin. Some fracking does take place in the Athabasca and North Saskatchewan basins, again which face far fewer supply challenges than does the South Saskatchewan
-irrigation is by for the largest water consumer in Alberta, not oil and gas or municipal
-the irrigation districts hold senior water rights meaning that cities like Calgary and Lethbridge would see their water rights cut entirely before the irrigation districts would have to cut at all. This is by long standing law, not the policy of the government of the day The government is taking proactive action to work deals with senior rights holders
-indoor municipal water consumption is largely irrelevant to drought as most of that water is captured, treated and released
-much outdoor water use is lost to evaporation. Hence outdoor watering restrictions
-Shultz is partly wrong in stating that negotiations will help downstream users. Both of Calgary’s water intakes, at Bearspaw and Glenmore, are upstream of the WID, BRID and EID diversions. Under current water rights, Calgary would have to pass water on to the irrigation districts in event of a shortage as they are senior. Lethbridge is downstream of the irrigation diversions on the Oldman
Well well. This one’s for Dani, for sure! https://youtu.be/egXi-IvR0sE
“Water sharing agreements”, what a crock! Translation: taxpayers will once again end up paying private businesses (as in O&G) for the privilege of being able to dip into “their” water sources. This is the world unbridled capitalism is leading us to, folks….
Fo5: I’m still waiting for “market-based breathing solutions.” DJC
Wrong. You can look at the license allocation at: https://waterlicences.alberta.ca/
Virtually all of the water in Southern Alberta is licensed to irrigation districts and municipalities. Any deals to reallocate water will be with the irrigation districts, not private companies, despite that better suiting the narrative.
As DC and others have pointed out, this is distraction politics. The UCP are brilliant strategists unlike our clumsy ANDP and use hot button issues to get we lefties all riled up. There are many, many other issues we need to keep an eye on but that’s difficult when all our energy is focussed on Smith’s hateful pronouncements. And what’s next? Birth control? Abortion? BC wines (oh right)? Tax free pickups and ATVs? Control over temp foreign workers? I digress.
Smith’s lack of leadership gets more dumbfounding every day. The latest fascist move against children and demonizing other, has us all in a fuddle. Meanwhile, as noted the Big Picture plan looks like the inside of Pave Darker’s navel– fuzzy, dark and unsavory. Water is the new oil so any plans she has for it will be solely about profiting from it and kowtowing to oh and gee in weakening water regs.
Our brave firefighters are right to be alarmed by her lack of focus.
Let’s see: Attack the most vulnerable and increase youth drug use and suicide rates OR develop a workable action plan to prevent and fight wildfires reviewing all of the causes, eg liberal arsonists, and coming up with a plan eg dart board options Ignore Obfuscate Blame Act on next TBA demand.
Clown is too good a word for a woman who is actively destroying Alberta by not acting on what matters.
Somebody once said “whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting.” I know that’s true because I’ve lived in the lee of, and the windward side of the Western Cordillera —that’s Spanish for ‘mountains’—the rainy side and the dry side and I’ve noticed my share of water issues.
The Great Plains that I’ve seen in Montana, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are mostly grass, the rest pine trees. It’s dry by nature. At present I live on the east coast of Vancouver Island and watched, for the last fifty years, mountain ranges that used to have snowpack year-round, now snow-free except for a dusting in winter. True, I live in the lee of the Big Island which only gets about a quarter the rainfall as the west coast (I know: I worked in the woods on the Big Island for decades—they didn’t call it “rainforest” for nuthin). Nevertheless we used to get enough of heaven’s blessing here in the lee to grow a Douglas fir as fast as you could tie your boot, enough to fill our tiny, shallow island aquifers and supply well water year-round.
Not anymore.
Couple years ago the municipality of Tofino, out on the open west coast, ran out of civic water, first time ever. Granted, its system was designed for traditional “wet coast” rainfall so the reservoir wasn’t very big and the surrounding rainforest is supposed by definition not to have a summer water deficit —or WAS supposed not to. Now wildfires are a thing on the open coast because of less rainfall, warmer, drier, and longer summers.
The glaciers are melting—yes, like they always did, but now faster than snowfall can replenish them.
It’s not a statistical blip: it’s been noticeable, I’ve recorded, for about 20 years— even accounting for the fact that I live here in the lee of the Big Island. The ecosystem which thrived here for thousands of years is changing fast.
Remember: the rainforest just 80 miles west of me is experiencing the first back-to-back summer water deficits in at least fifty centuries. Yes, “fifty.” Yes, “centuries”…at least…
But here on the “west coast” we know it’ll rain sometime. Keep telling myself this even as millions of hemlocks have vanished over the last 15 or 20 years from the forests where I live—I mean, from the 12,000 acres I’m most familiar with around our island town. The grand fir and red cedar are starting to wink-out, more every year.
If it’s getting this dry here, how dry’s it gonna be in Alberta, all the way to the lee side of way more and way bigger mountains? All of the southern half of BC—which intercepts the rain clouds on the westerly winds to Alberta— has been in a drought condition for the last few years; as a result BC’s famed hydro-electric dams aren’t as full as they used to be. There are more and more indications of deep, longterm drought.
Is rain coming to Alberta’s rescue? Is there any truth to the never-before-said old maxim that in times of rain prepare for wildfire? How can preparedness happen with less and less rain?
The community water system of which I am a subscriber made it official at this year’s AGM: the long-range forecast is for less rain and we shall manage accordingly. Members agreed to install rain barrels. Most subscribers are seniors like me, not gardening much anymore. But how prepared are we to leave our heirs and successors anything like we had? One thing’s sure: they won’t be growing their own organic vegetables, at least not watered by our system. We don’t have the water, not even now.
And that’s here, close to the Pacific source of precipitation for the western half of North America. What about Alberta, hundreds of miles away in the dry lee of the Western Cordillera? If we’re having less rainfall here, how much less rainfall will our Alberta compatriots get? And what about downstream in Saskatchewan which has to make do with riverine supply from Alberta—and, naturally, rainfall.
Would I ask that of anyone who is prepared to single-out one of the smallest, most vulnerable minorities in our society just because far-right extremists of another country are doing it? I’d sooner ask if she was going to do something about the climate…
yes, of course people wil fixate on transgender children and ignore water issues until its too late. Its so much eaier to poke you nose in some one else’s business than to deal with what is not in front of you. No water is a big deal. As the saying goes:
3 minutes with out air, you’re dead
3 hours without shelter from harsh weather, you’re dead
3 days without water, you’re dead.
Add in some forest fires and little water to fight the fires, there goes the ranch, the house, the schools, the roads, oh and don’t forget the people who can die in forest fires. They move so incredibily fast, especially when there are winds. We have had a few of those forest fires and its not fun.
In B.C. we are fortunate that there are a fair number of large lakes where water bombers can fill up, but the last time I was in Alberta, there didn’t seem to be a lot of lakes.
A lot of water has been used in /alberta over the decades for mining, oil, gas extraction. How much water is now in the ground? Does anyone have an idea. When B.C. had huge fires north of Cash Creek a number of years go, some ranchers were able to save their property. They had their own equipment i.e. bull dozers, back hoes , this wasn’t their first forest fire and they had ample water on their own property. They had very large bladders which they had filled and could continue to pump water into, water they had on their property, but in Alberta who knows
When people are faced with not having water to run their businesses, farms, or homes, things can get a tad ugly. it would not be the first time an oil well was blown up in Alberta.
I would not want to be around when the government orders parents to not fill their toddlers paddle pool while thousands of gallons go to oil, gas, etc.
The act in which the government can take control of water supplies and even control livestock and crops falls under the Alberta Emergency Management Act. Specifically section 10 Ministerial orders.
Ministerial orders
10(1) The Minister may, by order,
(a) divide Alberta into various subdivisions for the purpose of
organizing integrated emergency planning, training,
assistance and emergency operations programs;
(b) require local authorities of those municipalities located
within a subdivision referred to in clause (a) to prepare
integrated plans, procedures and mutual assistance programs
to deal with emergencies and to submit them to the
Managing Director for review;
(c) establish procedures required for the prompt and efficient
implementation of plans and programs to meet emergencies;
(d) require a person to whom the order is directed and
(i) who is engaged or may be engaged in any operation,
(ii) who is utilizing or may be utilizing any process,
(iii) who is using any property in any manner, or
RSA 2000
Section 11 Chapter E-6.8 EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ACT
9
(iv) on whose real property there exists or may exist any
condition,
that may be or may create a hazard to persons or property,
whether independently or as a result of some other event, to
develop plans and programs in conjunction with one or
more local authorities to remedy or alleviate the hazard and
to meet any emergency that might arise from the hazard.
A government can’t go from doing nothing one day to taking over control the next. There are human rights guidelines that need to be followed. We already saw this with Covid-19. Article 13.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that you can not restrict individuals’ movement. However, that said, in the event of an extreme emergency and public safety, you can make restrictions… only if you follow the steps involved. This will loop back around and tie in here in a moment.
Step 1: Acknowledge the hazard (covid-19, drought)
Step 2: Provide public education on the steps that need to be taken in order to mitigate the effects of the hazard.
Step 3: Ask for VOLUNTEER adherence to the mitigation plan.
Step 4: Provide more public education, explain how the volunteer adherence is working/not working
Step 5: ask one more time for volunteer adherence to the mitigation plan
Step 6: Restrict human rights, implement mandates to enforce adherence to the mitigation plan.
Step 7: Reach pre-determined success marker, to lift mandates
Step 8: Start all over again.
We all witnessed this during Covid-19 and the steps that will be followed for this emergency will be the same. This gets interesting when you realize that in Alberta, they have given corporations the same rights as if they were individuals. Universal human rights, which makes Article 17 of interest to corporate businesses.
Article 17
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
This means that they can’t just come out and restrict the property, and they do have to go through the proper steps. This link while it is related to Covid does an excellent job of explaining how restrictions on human rights as a result of emergency measures is possible. If you ever wondered why the state of emergency was always reviewed every 30 days this will give you a better idea.
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Events/EmergencyMeasures_COVID19.pdf
Anyway. That said, I wouldn’t put your personal preparedness and water supply in the hands of this government. Them making the decision to restrict property use of large corporations and businesses is less likely to happen than a snowball in hell. And if it does happen, it is because humans have already started to lose their lives.
Get your water supply. Individuals reducing their water consumption can save about 10% of the water supply. It isn’t enough to prevent the potential shit storm (maybe I should say dust storm) that could be on its way.