Water levels rising in area reservoirs
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on May 23, 2024.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
Area reservoirs are rising after recent rainfall but they still remain below normal levels.
An update by the City of Lethbridge on Wednesday shows that as of Tuesday, the Oldman River reservoir was sitting at 62 per cent of capacity, still down from the normal range between 68 and 89 per cent.
The St. Mary Reservoir has risen to 63 per cent of capacity. The normal for this time of the year is between 69 and 83 per cent.
The Waterton Reservoir is also sitting at 62 per cent of capacity, down from the normal level of 69 to 83 per cent.
Earlier in the month most reservoirs were only about 50 per cent of capacity, according to recent reports.
In early April the Oldman Reservoir was only about 32 per cent of capacity while the St. Mary’s was at 20 per cent, according to a report made last month to the Economic and Finance Standing Policy Committee of Lethbridge city council.
No mandatory restrictions are presently in place for Lethbridge residents.
On April 19, voluntary water sharing agreements were announced by the provincial government with major licence holders in southern Alberta agreeing to cut water consumption during times of severe drought.
Both the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District and St. Mary’s River Irrigation District are allocating just eight inches of water per acre to customers this year, down from the normal of 16-22 inches.
11-10
I definitely am no expert in this but would like to share some observations over the last 4 decades of my 70 years.
Ag is vital to our southern alberta economy. Lethbridge business generate large revenues from the ag producers. It needs to be supported!
We need reservoirs to support them while supplying our needs. After saying this I will say I have had concerns in the last few years watching 13 new pivots installed within a 60 mile radius of the city. And I do not live in the country, only worked briefly during harvests in the last few years. It did concern me.
It is not just pivots and irrigation that have increased water usage, but our province has gone from 2.4 million in population to 4.8 million in 2024 . . . that is a lot of new people using water.
There have been some bad choices made I believe, such as dramatic increases in crops which require high volumes of water and the processors that also require high volumes of water, but have our reservoirs being increase?
I remember in the late 1980’s when they were planning to build the oldman river dam, there was enormous outcries by the enviromentalists . . . the world will end if you build it . . . in fact good old Leonardo di Crapio may even have said it caused climate change! 😊
The world didn’t end and that dam has supplied us with water more effectively and is vital.
We do need more water storage, along with better crop planning for the future. It is not just Ag, Alberta’s population has grown!
Lastly . . . how many remember the June 1995 flood . . . the rains came, warm rains and they melted a large amount of the snowpack rapidly and the dams were not able to hold that water and the gates had to opened full to protect the structure, causing flooding downstream . . . we need that snow in the mountains right now to melt slow to sustain our water reserves.
Since2003, Atco has operated a hydro electric generator at the dam and that hydro-electric palnt is 75% owned by Atco and 25% owned by the Piikani Nation . . . I wonder what Milton Born With A Tooth thinks about that, or Devlon Small Legs who were two of the radical opponents to the dam?