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.

Grant Hunter, United Conservative Party MLA for Taber-Warner, takes a seat in the crowd. 

As organizers react to a growing line curling around the corner, event staff clear out removable walls and roll in more chairs.

Still, it's not enough, and soon, people are leaning on walls at the back of the room. Two farmers slide up and park themselves on a table.

Those who have gathered here are well aware of the difficulties looming over the coming farm year. 

The district, responsible for delivering irrigation water to farmers in southern Alberta, launches a PowerPoint presentation to lay out the challenges ahead. An organizer makes a joke about being run out the door by unhappy attendees.

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.

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.

"It's highly unlikely that we can avoid drought at this point. Because without the snowpack, we don't have the soil moisture, which means that the ground is dry," she said. 

"That's going to have a significant impact on agriculture."

The main event

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. El-Niño-type activity indicates drier and warmer weather ahead.

But the crowd clearly is anxious to learn about one big decision. Around an hour into the meeting, speakers arrive at the main event.

"Before I let you go for coffee, I know what you've been waiting for," said George Lohues, chairman of the district.

Farmers lean forward in their chairs, and the room grows tense. 

The district had previously communicated it was possible farmers would be allotted around eight inches of water at the gate — meaning irrigators within the district could use up to eight inches of water per acre for their registered parcels. In a good year, that number is set at 16.

There had been a chance that recent snowfalls would have allowed for an increase in that number. But it's not to be.

It'll be eight inches for now. Half of a good year. 

And though it will have a significant impact on operations, the room registers the information quietly, and accepts it. It's no big surprise. They break for coffee and head to the hallways.

David Westwood, general manager of the St. Mary River Irrigation District, explains what has led to the decision. 

The district uses forecasts from Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, pulling together data on storage, snowpack, historical precipitation and irrigated acreage across multiple districts to calculate an estimate for water allocation.

"We wanted to make sure we set an allocation that we feel we could service throughout the season, but obviously not run short of water," Westwood said.

Michel Camps is one of the farmers who came to the meeting. He had hoped the district would settle on nine or 10 inches. But he understands what led to where they are now.

"These guys don't set allocations lightly … but they can't forecast the future. So they gotta go about what they know," Camps said.

A big impact

His operation, CP Farms, is 30 kilometres east of Lethbridge. He runs it with his wife, Hanneke.

The farm prioritizes potato production above all else, tailoring its operations, rotations and equipment purchases accordingly. Potatoes receive precedence in tasks such as spraying and planting.

What led Camps to potato farming?

"Well, how much time do you have?" he said.

Camps and Hanneke, immigrants from Holland, bought what was at that time a 250-acre potato farm with a substantial bank loan and family funds. Camps' upbringing in Holland, where his family farm also cultivated potatoes, influenced their focus in Canada.

"We had no idea that the potato industry [in Canada was] gonna balloon to what it is today," Camps says. Today, 80 per cent of the farm's potato production — 1,600 acres — goes to the McCain Foods plant, located just down the road. 

Irrigation is crucial for this operation. The majority of the crops grown require much more water than what usually comes through natural rainfall in southern Alberta. If the water doesn't come, CP Farms might as well not grow its crops.

The water allocation set by the St. Mary River Irrigation District is usually not a big deal. But the eight inches presents a new challenge for CP Farms — a challenge this part of the province hasn't had to deal with since 2001. 

Camps said he'll reallocate water from grain to his high-value crops. Crop insurance requires watering of grains to four inches, so he'll need to do that before redirecting the rest to the more lucrative potato crops.

The difference between eight and 16 inches on his farm will mean a difference in millions of dollars of revenue.

"That's the cost to purchase or rent extra water allocation, not even counting that, just a drop in yield and the fact that if we get less water, the quality is not going to be there," he said.

"It's going to be a big deal for me and for many of the other farms in the area that have a similar crop mix."

An eye to expansion

Alberta has the largest irrigated area in Canada, reaching about 690,000 hectares in the province. Of that, 566,000 hectares are in southern Alberta along the South Saskatchewan River Basin (SSRB). The Bow, Oldman and South Saskatchewan sub-basins located within the SSRB have all been closed to new surface water allocations since 2006.

The Red Deer River, Bow River and Oldman River basins, which are part of the SSRB, are part of what the provincial government has called "unprecedented" water-sharing negotiations. Results from those negotiations are due in mid-April.

Though water supplies in southern Alberta are under stress, the province is moving forward with a planned expansion of irrigation.

In 2021, Alberta's government, the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Alberta's nine irrigation districts announced they would invest a total of nearly $933 million over seven years in irrigation infrastructure. The move would create 7,300 permanent jobs and 1,400 construction jobs, and contribute up to $477 million to the province's gross domestic product every year, according to a release.

Saskatchewan, which shares water with Alberta along the South Saskatchewan River Basin, is also set to start construction on a significant irrigation project.

Some of the proposed projects have been anticipated for what seems like forever. Take the Municipal District of Acadia, near the Saskatchewan border. In 2004, the M.D. commissioned a study with support from the provincial and federal governments to examine large-scale farmland irrigation in the municipality. 

In 2021, the M.D. signed a memorandum of understanding with the provincial government, the Canadian Infrastructure Bank and the Special Areas Board to again examine the potential for such developments.

"I don't really know how we get it lost in the weeds all the time. I guess the size of it has always been a bit of a hindrance," said Scott Heeg, a councillor with the M.D. and a dryland wheat farmer.

For his family farm, such a large-scale irrigation project would mean a lot.

"In my mind, it would mean sustainability for our family farm and the surrounding community as a whole, for all our producers," Heeg said.

"The population of the area out here is on a steady decline. We need something to sustain the area and keep the people here, and hopefully even grow."

'Where's the water going to come from?'

Alberta's planned irrigation expansion does raise questions for some.

"That announcement was made shortly after I moved to this province. And I literally did a bit of a head-scratcher, because, OK — where's the water going to come from?" said Stadnyk, the Canada Research Chair in hydrologic modelling.

At the St. Mary River Irrigation District AGM, a common sentiment was that though Alberta is in a drought cycle, it will move into a wet cycle again. Stadnyk said such a sentiment is fair but doesn't tell the whole story.

"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?"

Back at the AGM, Westwood, the irrigation district's general manager, understands the concerns. With a planned expansion of irrigation, in a drier and hotter future, solutions will need to be put on the table.

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.

"We are very confident that we can irrigate the same or more with less water than we have in the past," Westwood said.

"By converting to underground pipelines, we save on seepage evaporation and spill-out at the end of our systems. That allows us to utilize that water for irrigation. That allows for the expansion."

Some of that is already playing out on local farms. Gary Tokariuk, president of the Alberta Sugar Beet Growers, farms about 1,000 acres — half rented, half owned.  

"We're actually using less water than we ever have. We have more acres, but we're using less water. It's an economic driver in our area, and you're not going to have the McCain's or any of these plants come here if there's no water for irrigation," Tokariuk said.

Alberta's irrigation district managers, meanwhile, have proposed a $5-billion plan for water storage and conservation in the province's south. The report brought together 40 organizations to reach its recommendations and focuses on the SSRB.

Margo Redelback of the Alberta Irrigation Districts Association told The Canadian Press that southern Alberta would continue to have enough water, with the exception of "extreme scenarios" in which glaciers no longer feed the basin.

But it will probably come at different times of the year, Redelback said, or will drain away as runoff instead of being released slowly by melting ice or snow. Under all scenarios of warming, end-of-summer water flows are projected to be lower.

"It's really about timing," Redelback said. "We're going to have more variable water falling.

"For that reason, there's large potential storage projects that could be considered."

Water from irrigation is provided to more than 40 municipalities and thousands of rural residents in Alberta, while businesses also receive water through the system to support their operations, according to the provincial government.

No easy answers

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.

And though storage is a potential solution to offset seasonality, there will also likely be an overall reduction in streamflow for prairie rivers, she said. 

"There is general agreement from the climate models and hydrology on this. We will still have to learn to live with less, and be more efficient with our water use at all times of the year," she said.

It's also important to note that pipelines leak, Stadnyk noted, and efficiencies are never as high as textbook efficiencies one may expect to have in the system. Due diligence will be crucial in moving ahead, she said.

"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.

Considering potential trends when it comes to temperature and water supply, Westwood said irrigators would need to start growing responsive crops that potentially could use less water.

"I think irrigators are [thinking] about that. They're looking at a lot of on-farm improvements, a lot of ways of looking at growing different varieties of crops that require less water," he said.

There are a lot of unanswered questions here, and all involved agree it's a complex and evolving process. Among those who believe more irrigation is possible in southern Alberta, technological efficiency is pointed to as the way forward. 

For some, like Stadnyk, it's clear that technology is advancing and things are becoming more water efficient. But it doesn't solve every problem.

"I think we're going to need every ounce of that efficiency just to overcome climate change, and these more frequent and longer droughts," she said. 

"It still begs the question, where is the extra water going to come from? I don't have a good answer for that."

This story is part of CBC Calgary's ongoing series, When In Drought, which explores Alberta's drought conditions — and how best to handle them. You can find the other stories here.