MEDICINE HAT – Stan Wilson doesn’t have a water licence on his ranch west of Nanton.
Without that licence he’s concerned about his future right to draw water for his family and his cattle, a right that was never questioned before.
Wilson is one of many livestock producers worried about a new Alberta water act that could insist they obtain licences to use water. And those licences could be superceded by other users deemed by government to need the water more.
Dependent on a clean, ample water supply for their livelihood, livestock producers want assurances that agricultural water rights in Alberta will be protected.
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“If you took that right away from a livestock operator, you’ve effectively made all of his property worthless,” Wilson said.
A resolution, passed at the Western Stock Growers meeting in Medicine Hat at the end of November, requested that if compulsory water licences are required then present water users should have those licences grandfathered to protect people who have ranched for several generations.
In this province priority is given to the oldest licences, which were granted on a first come, first served basis. The licence stipulates how much water the holder is entitled to use.
The proposed water act draft is circulating in a series of public meetings where farmers and ranchers have crowded into meeting halls to voice their concerns.
Wilson objects to reviewing the draft after it’s written and says stakeholders should have been involved earlier in the rewrite.
“I think one of the few good things to come out of this is the realization that stakeholders have to be involved right from day one,” he said.
Larry Helland, vice-chair of the Alberta Cattle Commission, said a recent meeting at Wainwright drew 350 people and another at Bonnyville saw more than 200 agriculture producers express their concerns.
“Agriculture has totally dominated the discussions,” said Helland in an interview during the ACC annual meeting in Calgary Dec. 5-7.
When the draft was released the ACC hired a legal consultant, Keith Wilson of the Edmonton law firm Bishop and McKenzie, to review it. His report has been adopted by all the major cattle groups in the province as well as poultry and hog producers.
Helland says the new legislation isn’t all bad because the government has recognized it must start to conserve water before there’s a shortage. Several areas of concern remain.
Under the current water resources act, people watered their livestock under the domestic use category, which didn’t require a licence.
Under the new legislation domestic use will be changed to household and related uses, which allows a farmer to take up to 10,000 gallons per week or 500,000 gallons per year for household use and watering livestock. This accommodates an average-sized family and 47 animals. Withdrawals over that amount require a licence.
And during licence transfer, the government could hold back 10 percent of the water protected by that licence and re-allocate it to another user, said Helland.
Another concern questions ownership of standing water.
“God owns the rain until it hits the ground and then it belongs to Ralph Klein,” said stock grower vice-president Norm Ward of Granum. The government argues that it owns all the water in the province.
Ward also worries that some large urban centres could set up “water ranches” where a piece of land is purchased solely for its water.
However, he said people need to understand how the water cycle works and by drawing a lot of water out of one place, the supply in another could be jeopardized.
