Upper Oldman water levels shockingly low

By Letter to the Editor on December 1, 2021.

Editor:
Alarmingly, 2021 appears likely to emerge as the hottest year in Alberta’s recorded climatological history, and the upper Oldman River, plagued by drought throughout the past year, is shockingly low. 
Unexpected gifts from heaven have injected a faint glimmer of autumn hope. Two significant rainfall events, one at the end of October, another in November, have provided a brief, schizophrenic touch of relief to the upper Oldman as it flows through the Livingstone Range at The Gap and to the Crowsnest (formerly the Middle Fork of the Old Man), but have failed to bump flows in the hungry headwaters of the Castle (formerly the South Fork of the Old Man).
The current volume of water in the Crowsnest River, while barely covering the river’s rocky bed, exceeds (according to Alberta Environment) that of the Castle River, and the flows of all the upper Oldman’s tributaries remain critically low.
Recent rainfall, while cherished and celebrated where it has occurred, has not fallen equitably throughout the Oldman’s dry, desiccated headwaters landscape.
Drought-ravaged croplands, critical winter rangelands, and Alberta’s fire-prone matchstick forests, chronically thirsty, beg for more.
Autumn flow rates in the upper Oldman River, hugging and falling beneath benchmark lows, are frightening, and climatologists predict ever-decreasing flows.
The Oldman, wounded, bleeding, and running-on-empty, cries out for help.
David McIntyre
Crowsnest Pass