Water is in short supply in southern Alberta. Is a massive expansion of irrigation possible?
Water is in short supply in southern Alberta. Is a massive expansion of irrigation possible?
At an annual general meeting in Lethbridge for the largest irrigation district in Canada, it's standing room only.
These AGMs for the St. Mary River Irrigation District, located in southern Alberta, are normally sleepy affairs. But this year is different as the province is staring down challenging drought conditions.
What's expected today is big news for the 200-odd people filing into the room, some wearing jackets bearing the names of their respective operations.
Semi-arid southern Alberta, which relies heavily on irrigation, is expected to be hit with particular challenges — and new data from Environment and Climate Change Canada paints a striking picture of Canada's Prairies.
"As a hydrologist, I definitely agree that there's always a cycle with the water," Stadnyk said. "But what the science says is that this is one of the regions in the world where we can expect more frequent drought cycles, and longer drought cycles. "That begs the question about economic viability, right? How long can farmers and irrigators hold out without that water and still be productive and still have a viable business?"
This is what it boils down to. I think that unfortunately, we're going to have to either develop more water-effective measures of irrigation (which all cost significantly more than the standard sprayers), or the yields are going to fall significantly. Either of those mean that food prices will continue to climb.
Its not a good situation, and there's not a good solution.
Its not a good situation, and there's not a good solution.
Tbf there was a good solution 50 years ago but gov'ts didn't do anything about it.
On a related note I'm currently visiting friends in northwestern Ontario (I left about 13 years ago). On the way here I saw quite a few white birds migrating north and mistakenly thought they were snow geese. Turns out they're swans that started migrating further north about 10 years ago.
We are utterly FUBARed at this point.
Its always scary to see the impacts of climate change on an individual basis.
No one here, especially those reading these articles, were around then. All we can do it mitigate and reduce future impact.
Part of that is understanding that shits gonna get expensive for us. BUT if people collectively push against the government and complain about things like high food prices (when driven by actual food scarcities, not 'inflation' and corporate greed), the response will be to offload problems to another generation by stealing water from elsewhere, increased use of fossil fuels, or some other short term stop gap.
We as a society will not get the same life our parents and grandparents had. Full stop. If we try to, we will fuck things up even more for the next generation. It sucks, but I don't see another way around it. It can still be a good life, but we need to change a whole lot to get there.
I'm in N Alberta and swans have migrated past here this time of year for the half-century I've been alive. My dad says they've done that as long as he can remember. And we don't get snow geese through here, it's definitely swans, because I've seen them land.
Meanwhile, there's people in that landlocked province who want sovereignty from the rest of Canada. Go try to drink your oil.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The district, responsible for delivering irrigation water to farmers in southern Alberta, launches a PowerPoint presentation to lay out the challenges ahead.
The brown area in the photo is very concerning because it means virtually zero to no snowpack in an expanse that extends across the Prairies, said Tricia Stadnyk, a professor and Canada Research Chair in hydrologic modelling with the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering.
In the room at the St. Mary River Irrigation District AGM, organizers explain that supply in the area is lower compared with last year, with a dry winter affecting snowpack and reservoir storage.
But Westwood said the district is confident that even though southern Alberta is on a path to irrigation expansion, it's being done through infrastructure projects leading to strong water savings.
Stadnyk, the Canada Research Chair in hydrologic modelling with the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering, says it's virtually certain that Alberta will no longer have glacier inflow in the future — the only question is when this will occur, whether that's in 2030 or 2050.
"The last thing we would want as a province as a whole is to spend millions of dollars, if not billions, retrofitting for irrigation expansion, only to find that the water isn't there to fill the canals or the pipes," she said.
The original article contains 2,260 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 90%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Maybe they can use their oil money to fix it
"Once the easy-to-extract oil is consumed, then only costly-to-extract oil exists to be consumed, and sooner or later the cost becomes too-much to justify."
"Once the easy-to-extract water is consumed, then only costly-to-extract water exists to be consumed, and sooner or later the cost becomes too-much to justify."
It's the same problem.
Oil isn't self-renewing, water used to be, but with ClimatePunctuation, that's changing.
Humankind may have to abandon the praries, later this century, exactly as most of California, most of Texas, most of the Middle East, & most of India are going to be unusable.
Too-many over-40C days per year & NO water for us, both prevent a region from being inhabitable.
The 600+ mass-shootings in the US in 2023 are nothing, compared with the rampaging pogromming that's going to be going-on in the coming years, as The Great Filter continues unfolding..
Humankind may have to abandon the praries, later this century, exactly as most of California, most of Texas, most of the Middle East, & most of India are going to be unusable.
I live near the tip of the Palliser Triangle in Saskatchewan. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that having Lake Diefenbaker isn't going to make enough of a difference to matter.
The people in charge already have trouble keeping it full because of overall flow reductions. Agreements or not, Alberta still gets first crack at the South Saskatchewan River and overall flow is likely going to keep going down. Irrigation projects are rapidly becoming a boondoggle, not a solution.