Alberta earns a failing grade on water protection
By Lethbridge Herald on November 22, 2024.
Editor:
The Auditor General of Alberta released a report earlier this year: Surface Water Management, Environment and Protected Areas.
The report didn’t make much of a splash in the news.
Are most Albertans too busy to pay attention to the dire state of Alberta’s surface water?
The audit was conducted to see if the Government of Alberta is managing water resources in a way that serves the people of Alberta. The conclusion: it is not.
The Auditor General’s report revealed that the Government of Alberta:
• has no water conservation objectives in most basins
• does not know if existing water conservation objectives are working
• lacks robust processes to monitor water pressures, assess risks, and decide when water conservation objectives are needed
• has ineffective processes to approve licences and monitor compliance
The Auditor General also found the Government of Alberta failed to “… publicly report relevant and reliable information on managing surface water.”
Read the report. It isn’t the usual dry document, full of language no one could understand. Some highlights:
• License applications approved without support for key decisions
• Insufficient monitoring of licensee compliance with requirements such as allocation and withdrawal limits
• No assurance licensee-submitted water usage is accurate and complete.
Yikes! And there’s more. . . .
The report “… identified that some of the 2023 water flow data across 22 stations displayed on the Rivers Alberta website was incorrect.”
My conclusion: The Government of Alberta doesn’t know how much water is in Alberta’s rivers and streams. Within this void, it issues water licences. There are no consequences for violating the terms of the water rights, and licenses are renewed even when licensees are using more water than their allotment. And these outcomes occur without government staff paying attention, and with no public scrutiny.
The Auditor General gave Environment and Protected Areas an “F.” I agree with this assessment. Google the report. Tell the Minister of Environment and Protected Areas and your MLA that the Government of Alberta has failed. As drought grips the land, it’s vital that the Government of Alberta manages every precious drop.
Monica Field
Crowsnest Pass
22-21
it’s a pointless exercise to attempt to influence the current government with science, reason or data.
In the willful absence of information, the time is ripe to expand irrigation.
Definitely room for improvement. Thanks for pointing this out. In the meantime, I think it is highly important that we don’t drink anything containing water.
Useless and pathetic comment!
That’s the way he rolls.
The negative vote collector.
it is astounding that water, among the planet’s most precious resources (you know, along with the likes of breathable air, plants…thriving and diverse healthy ecosystems), is hardly approached with any real concern by our prov’l govt. no concern about how much is wasted on mining, ruined by fracking, and stored as large lakes of leaching, toxic tailings.
further astounding is how many albertans see this utter lack of management and conservation as yet another proud achievement of their can-do-no-wrong con-named govt.
You are bang-on with this well presented letter. Like a fox in charge of the henhouse we have water allocation and licensing in the hands of the irrigation districts. Your comment regarding the lack of accountability, metering, and a lack of any kind of penalty for over-use is a so true. And this is a direct responsibility of the districts who have fought metering forever.
Equally as disheartening is the land that was previously deemed unfit to irrigate is now being irrigated. We will certainly see the results of this as the pretty white lakes appear in the country.
And sadly, equally as true, is the fact we have a government that has a complete disregard for any kind of fact based or science based data and puts money ahead of everything.
You only have to look to the “closed shop” voting in the pass regarding the coal mine expansions to see if this is true.
Why are the people served by the Old Man watershed not given a voice?
I think we all know the answer to that.
Bill McDonald
Acreage Owner – Monarch