| Prominent Alberta water experts say allowing a major development just outside Calgary to divert water from the Red Deer River, which is nowhere near the project, would set a dangerous precedent in a province that is rapidly running out of water.
United Horsemen of Alberta and Ivanhoe Cambridge are planning a joint development on the east side of Highway 2, just off the Balzac interchange that will include a racetrack and casino with a capacity for 7,850 patrons, hotel, conference centre and a major mall, which will be slightly larger than Chinook Mall.
The M.D. of Rockyview has applied to Alberta Environment for permission for the developers to withdraw 5,000 cubic metres of water per day from the Red Deer River. The M.D. made the application because the provincial government has put a cap on any further water withdrawals from the South Saskatchewan River basin, which includes the Bow River, in order to protect the basin’s aquatic ecosystem. Alberta Environment spokesperson Sherri-Dawn Annett says her department is still reviewing the application.
David Schindler, an ecology professor at the University of Alberta and an internationally renowned water expert, says the Red Deer River is the only "reasonably intact" river in southern Alberta and all the others are "way over subscribed" as far as water licences.
He questions the appropriateness of "seeing the last of the basins that’s in reasonably good shape attacked for something as trivial as gambling. We’re short of water," he adds. "Do we really want to spend it to promote gambling? This is a ridiculous use of water."
Schindler says Alberta Environment’s decision on this water licence will be "an opportunity to find out if the Water For Life strategy is worth anything at all." The strategy, created in 2003, states "fluctuating and unpredictable water supply in recent years has stressed the need to make some major shifts in our approach to managing this renewable, but finite, resource."
The Water For Life document also states that during the consultation process with the general public a "clear set of principles" emerged including "all Albertans must recognize there are limits to the available water supply" and "Alberta’s water resources must be managed within the capacity of individual watersheds."
Schindler says he considers the Red Deer River to be an individual watershed. He adds that Alberta Environment also has to consider the fact that climate change is reducing river flows. "The Red Deer (River)… is down about 30 per cent from historic flows in the summer… and we’ve got more climate warming to come," he says.
Jim Byrne, a professor of geography at the University of Lethbridge (U of L) and the former director of the Water Resources Institute at the U of L, says the amount of water the developers are asking to take out of the Red Deer River "relative to the river flow is not dramatic." But he agrees that the precedent it sets is problematic. "If you start giving small quantities of water then what’s wrong with giving a little bigger and a little more to somebody else and somebody else," he says.
Bob Sandford, chair of the United Nations Water For Life Decade Partnership in Canada and executive director of the Western Watersheds Climate Research Collaborative, says part of the problem is Canadians have "a long standing, deeply ingrained Canadian myth of limitless water abundance." However, he points out that with rapid population growth and climate change Alberta will become increasingly "water scarce." He says the situation "requires stronger policy and vision than is being applied to water management in the province.
"Right now we have fully allocated or over allocated all of the water resources from the Montana border to the Red Deer River," he says. "We’ve got to wake up to the fact that (water scarcity) is really happening." |
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