Province to study possible irrigation upgrade projects
By Lethbridge Herald on September 20, 2025.
Lethbridge Herald
The Alberta government is investigating the possibility of building a dam on the Belly River and making improvements to the Waterton and St. Mary Headworks System.
The province has hired WSP Canada to conduct the study which includes a proposed reservoir five kilomentres northwest of Mountain View in Cardston County on the Belly River.
Mountain Wiew is located west of Cardston.
The province says the reservoir could improve water security while providing drought and flood resiliency and supporting the aquatic ecosystem.
WSP Canada will also determine if opportunities exist to improve the canal between the Waterton and St. Mary reservoirs and how water flow could be improved between them.
The Agriculture and Irrigation department of the Alberta government owns and operates 340 kilometres of irrigation headworks canals, more than 80 dams and four pumping stations along with flood protection berms and dikes.
Irrigation districts relying on the Belly River for water include Magrath, Mountain View, Raymond, St. Mary River, Taber and United.
WSP Canada is a global engineering firm, working in more than 100 sectors, which has more than 200,000 projects on the go around the world.
10-9
It will be interesting to see/hear what our Indigenous Peoples would have to say about a dam on the Belly River. Will Indigenous rights be respected?
Once again, I wonder where the water will come from (as we already struggle to fill existing reservoirs). And though I asked our deadbeat Water Czar, MLA Neudorf, who is modelling water flows in the south, he didn’t answer.
Building reservoirs will be another expensive boondoggle.
Populations will continue to grow . . . radicals climate change advocates want us to eat vegetarian, not meat, which takes more water and the same climate change advocates are saying we are going to see hotter temps and more severe weather, including drought. If a decision is made, it will be over a decade before it is operational, with years of researching it communicating with those impacted. We need more water!
I remember the environmentalists screaming we will destroy weather patterns and cause climate changes and environmental damages across all of southern Alberta if we build the Oldman river dam. Well, decades later and did the ‘sky fall’!!!???
We need water to survive and water to grow grains and vegetables. It is a necessity of life! We need another dam and as stated in other media, the study will take years to conduct!
Or . . . stop using water! Don’t wash your car or water your grass and shower or bath once a week. Change what you eat: stop eating tubulars (potatoes/carrots and stop using sugar because sugar beets take a lot of wate ), as well as corn and celery which are all water-intensive. They are all grown in southern Alberta as well.
There is ongoing changes in our climate and we are not going to stop it! It is more about the solar flares impacting our weather and some other factors, but Canada can do littler more than what they are doing. We only emit 1.6% of the world GHG’s and if we drastically slashed all emissions could only get down to about 1%. China emits over 34% or the world GHG’s yet no one is telling China to reduce emissions. Where do you think the best reductions could be made? Why do you think Canada is under attack and blamed by world? They thing Canada is a wealthy nation but they are so wrong! We are close to facing a debt wall where no one will loan us money! We are broke!
A newborn is immediately born with a debt of over $30,000 to pay off!
We need to be wise and be prepared with a plan for a dam, and there are a few other areas we could consider, but we need to plan now because it will be many years before it would be operating!
Wisdom would involve reducing our ghg emissions, conserve the integrity of the eastern slopes, and use water for growing nutritional food.
Dams don’t create water.
I agree with you.
well, i’ll (we’ll) be dammed! is not another dam kind of like robbing peter to pay paul? as sophie notes, dams do not create water. as so ab notes, will indigenous rights be respected?
somehow, another dam, and on a river that is hardly a water-bloated belly, seems not about wise water management. given the plug at the end of the article, it strikes me that the dam will be of most value to wsp canada, the ucp via kickbacks, and all the wonderful insiders and middlepersons whose pockets will get well lined from such a white elephant.