Work continues on mapping, soil and geotechnical testing and development of the water project’s preliminary design
Saskatchewan’s plan to develop another 500,000 acres of irrigation is proceeding, although perhaps not quickly enough for some.
Farmers got an update during the Saskatchewan Irrigation conference held online earlier this month.
Questions after the presentation from Water Security Agency officials included how soon shovels would be in the ground.
Clinton Molde, executive director of Integrated Water Services, said work to date has been mostly at the desktop level.
“We need to start bringing in some information from the ground to further refine the design and give us better cost estimates going forward,” he said.
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Lidar mapping is underway with about a third of that complete and the rest to follow in spring.
Soil testing is required; individual quarter sections will be sampled to make sure they are suitable for irrigation, which will directly inform the project design, he said.
“We also need to go out and do geotechnical testing, not only looking at the pump station area along the existing canal and at the reservoir, but also other areas that have not been developed yet,” Molde said.
The 10-year, $4-billion project to expand irrigation from Lake Diefenbaker was announced in July and will include three phases of work. The first two will be on the Westside Irrigation Project, which could add 340,000 acres of irrigation, and the third is the Qu’Appelle South Water Conveyance project, that will add up to 120,000 irrigated acres while securing water supplies for the Regina and Moose Jaw areas.
A prime consultant has not yet been selected to take the project lead, but Molde said several committees across government ministries are working on things like the technical and environmental aspects of the project.
Preliminary design for both phases of Westside have to be done at the same time and that will be next, he said.
Lyle Stewart, who was the legislative secretary to the WSA and is now provincial secretary, said he expects the project will encourage growers to tackle more high-value crops such as carrots and other vegetables.
He told the conference that when he was agriculture minister in 2016, Campbell’s Soup company officials visited the province.
“They told us, after some talks and them doing a bunch of research in the area, that with 110,000 acres of irrigation in the area, although we could produce pretty much everything they wanted, it wasn’t enough to assure them supply,” Stewart said. “That was a major disappointment that stuck with me.”
Increasing the irrigation base would benefit the entire economy, he said, providing jobs, taxes and food security.
“We are the best opportunity in Canada, for sure,” he said, referring to filling in gaps that will be created if large U.S. aquifers run dry and decimate that country’s vegetable production. “We will attract the attention of food processors.”
Lake Diefenbaker was originally expected to irrigate about 500,000 acres and only about 20 percent of that goal was achieved.
Molde said there is enough water in the reservoir to meet existing needs and add more irrigation.
About 900,000 acre feet of water is available each year on top of existing uses, and the two projects will need about 700,000 acre feet, he said.
The reservoir stores about 7.6 million acre feet, with a median annual inflow of 4.5 million acre feet.
“In 50 percent of the year it more than replenishes at least half of the storage within Lake Diefenbaker,” Molde said.
Its depth is about 185 feet (57 metres) at the Gardiner Dam and 200 feet (60 metres) at the Riverhurst ferry. An extra 500,000 acres of irrigation would take between five and seven feet (1.5 to 2.1 metres) off the top, he said.
Once the design is complete, rehabilitation work will begin on the Westside where 42 kilometres of a 45-km canal were built in the 1970s before the project was abandoned.
Phase 1 is expected to cost $500 million. The province continues to work with Ottawa to obtain federal assistance, since the project will help prevent drought and provide food.
“$4 billion is a lot of money,” Stewart said. “We don’t throw that sum around loosely.”
Critics have said the project could cost a lot more, and won’t produce the $40 to $80 billion in economic benefits over 50 years that the government has said it will. Others say there will be environmental costs downstream, such as at the Saskatchewan River delta at Cumberland House.
Abdul Jalil, assistant deputy minister for Western Economic Diversification in Saskatchewan, noted that the project fits with a recommendation in that agency’s Prairie Prosperity report that called for federal and provincial co-operation on the projects.
But he also told the conference that environmental impacts have to be addressed and minimized over time.
He said environmental management has to be included in the design to maintain public support and Saskatchewan’s desire to be a sustainable food supplier.
