Province doesn’t always hold back when it comes to conservation
The City of Calgary has been telling Calgarians all summer to “do nothing to save water.” The campaign is aimed at conserving water by encouraging people to water their lawns less to “help reduce the strain we put on our rivers.”
But according to environmental biologist Cheryl Bradley the water Calgarians save by dutifully refraining from watering their lawns taking shorter shower and installing (often costly) low-flow appliances may not be returned to the river for the long-term. “People are told to save water because it’s good for the environment” says Bradley who is on the board of the Southern Alberta Group for the Environment. “But whether it is going back into the river we have no guarantee of that.”
The Bow River sub-basin is closed to new water licences but studies show the rivers in southern Alberta are already over-allocated. “I’m concerned with the health of our rivers” Bradley says. “We have licensed parties to take more water than is healthy for the river.”
Because the river sub-basin is closed to new licences the city of Calgary has to use water more efficiently if it wants to continue to grow. The city has developed a “30 in 30” water conservation goal which aims to maintain water usage until the year 2035 at the same level as in 2003. To do this the city needs to reduce its water consumption by 30 per cent over 30 years to accommodate increased population.
So far the city is on track according to Paul Fesko manager of Strategic Services. “If you look at the numbers we are making great strides” he says. “There is still a lot more potential to be more efficient. If there is no more water in the river you have to become more efficient to be able to grow.” The city’s statistics show that per capita demand has dropped by almost half since 1986.
But Bradley’s concern is that this strategy doesn’t help the health of over-allocated rivers. “We closed the basin too late — shutting the door after the cows were out of the barn” she says. “We need to be planning to leave enough water for the river because it is only getting more stressed.”
Without enough water Bradley says the quality of the remaining water in rivers will diminish leading to a host of problems for the riparian communities that support 80 per cent of prairie birds and many other species as well as providing recreational opportunities for Albertans. “When you have too little water the river has less ability to absorb contaminants such as the ones released by cities’ waste-water treatment plants” she says. “We’re already working our rivers hard to dilute the waste.”
According to Fesko the City of Calgary has already spent a large amount of money to upgrade the city’s waste-water treatment facilities to reduce stress on the river. “Over the years Calgary has vastly improved water quality coming through the city” Fesko says. “Our long-term vision is that we will have no impact on the Bow and Elbow rivers.”
The Alberta government controls the allocation of all of Alberta’s water and issues licences to various parties who apply from individuals to farmers to urban municipalities to industry. These licences specify a certain amount of water available to that party for a certain purpose and are “first in time first in right” which means the older licences have priority over newer ones. The government is no longer accepting applications in the Oldman South Saskatchewan and Bow sub-basins so the only way to get water is by transfer.
The government has the ability to take 10 per cent of the amount transferred and allocate it back to the river for conservation. But according to Bradley they have only held back that water on half of the transfers between 2002 and 2010. In addition the government has approved eight irrigation district licence amendments which allow the districts to allocate conserved water to other purposes while avoiding conservation holdbacks.
Carrie Sancargier a spokesperson for Alberta environment says every transfer is evaluated separately and the holdback is not always deemed necessary. “There are some instances when water conservation objectives are being met for instance if water is being removed downstream of a reservoir.” She also notes that in-stream conservation objectives were lower prior to 2006 which meant less transfers qualified for the holdback.
Bradley says there would have to be thousands of transfers for just the holdbacks to return an adequate amount of water to the rivers. She wants the province to implement more effective measures such as purchasing unused portions of water licences or linking public investment in improved efficiency to river conservation.
“The provincial government should be more assertive about what the river needs to be healthy but it is a politically charged debate” Bradley says. “They are not moving assertively towards securing unused water for the river even though the government has the right to allocate that to the river.”
When asked about this criticism Sancargier responds “Our Water for Life strategy has three goals: Healthy aquatic ecosystems; reliable quality water supply; and safe secure drinking water. We are working to meet these goals.”
However she could not speak to how the program was progressing.
Bradley worries that things will only get worse for Alberta’s rivers as climate change melts the glaciers that feed most of our rivers. “We have allocated our rivers to a point where they are already stressed and it will only get worse in a few decades when there is less available water and more demand” Bradley says. “If we don’t resolve this peacefully and reasonably now future generations will be faced with controversy and conflict over who gets the water and likely our rivers will lose that battle.”