Red Deer River Water Transfer Proposal Rears its Ugly Head Again

A major inter-basin transfer of water from the Red Deer River Basin is once again being proposed by the Alberta government. The Special Areas Water Supply Project would remove an undetermined volume of water from the Red Deer River to be used principally for irrigation agriculture, as well as some municipal improvement and undefined “environmental” uses. The proposal would see Albertans foot the enormous bill for a low value, environmentally-damaging engineering project.

The Special Areas Water Supply Project has been on the government books, in one form or another, for twenty years. The previous version of the proposals, which AWA fought strongly against in 2005, would have seen a $200 million bill paid by the Alberta taxpayer (or $60 paid by every single Albertan!). For its minimal economic benefit (a government economic study found that the project would return only 70 cents per dollar spent), the project had potential to do significant damage to the Red Deer river ecosystem and to areas of native grasslands which stood to be ploughed up and used for irrigation agriculture.

In 2002, new allocations from the Oldman, Bow and South Saskatchewan Rivers were halted because the basins were acknowledged to be over-allocated. AWA believes that new allocations from the Red Deer River should be suspended before the basin is over-allocated, not afterwards!

Although the Alberta government has announced that it will be carrying out a three-year environmental assessment of the project, no details have yet been released concerning how the project compares to previous versions: what the cost will be, or how much water will be removed.

AWA believes that agricultural techniques must be developed to allow agriculture to operate within natural environmental constraints. If conditions are too dry to grow water-intensive crops, then other options and new ways of thinking need to be investigated, rather than multi-million dollar engineering projects to transport water to naturally dry landscapes. Future climate change models, which project increasing temperatures in the region in the coming years, add to the weight of the arguments against this outdated proposal.

The Alberta government has promised a short public consultation process for the proposed environmental assessment. AWA will be contacting supporters when details are announced.