RED DEER – Putting a price on water may do little to curb the urgent demand in Western Canada.
“The commodification of water does get talked about,” says David Hill, manager of the Alberta Irrigation Projects Association.
However, charging for water is not likely to lead to improved conservation, Hill added.
Instead, sharing water may come down to an attitude change.
“There is not enough water or land for everybody to get what they want all the time,” he said.
He wants the public to know that the province’s largest user of water is doing more than growing food.
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“It is about sustaining communities, sustaining habitats, sustaining quality of life,” he said in an interview at the Alberta Agricultural Economics Association annual meeting in Red Deer on May 4.
“It is all those things that are actually involved in the way farmers handle the land to grow food. If it can’t be done, then all the other benefits we are expecting would disappear.”
Alberta farmers water 1.3 million acres and their irrigation districts hold a licence for 2.8 million acre feet, but do not use the full amount.
A University of Lethbridge water researcher said the province may step in and take water from licence holders if a shortage inhibits industrial development.
“There has been exponential growth in the amount of water we are taking out of the waterways,” Henning Bjornlund said at the meeting.
There is more demand for water than what can be delivered and the public is starting to question who gets the most, he added. Because there is no new water, supplies must be obtained from someone who has a licence and is not using their full allocation. Active water markets could be common in the future.
“So far, reallocation has been a voluntary act between willing buyers and sellers,” he said.
Government likes this system, which was implemented in 2000, because it does not require it to step in and take away water.
Hill said farmers do not expect to get more water so irrigation expansion must happen with what is available.
Farmers have proven they can conserve and share water, as demonstrated in 2001 when southern Alberta faced the worst drought of the century. Agreements among irrigators worked out a shared allocation so all received enough water for crops.
Hill said their greatest failing has been not promoting efficient water use and its economic benefits.
“We have not done a great job of communicating with people in the urban communities.”
He thinks an economic benefits study is needed so the public can see the true relationship between irrigation, farm cash receipts and value to a region.
Irrigation districts have a system to measure each crop and each farm’s need for water and extrapolate the need for an entire district. This takes into account evaporation, precipitation, soil percolation, water holding capacity of the soil and plant uptake and the type of equipment used to apply water most efficiently.
