20091231

thursday, december 31, 2009

vol. 87 | no. 53 | $3.75

WATER |

Water availability defined settlement and growth on the Prairies. It continues to do so.

In this issue, we focus on water and agriculture.

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W ww . p r o d u cer . c o m

december 31, 2009 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Saskatoon, SK. S7K 2C4 The Western Producer is published in Saskatoon by Western Producer Publications, which is owned by GVIC Communications Inc. Publisher, Ken Zacharias Publications Mail Agreement No. 40069240; Registration No. 10676

SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923

How much, who’s using it and more

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december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

Wading waist-deep into water matters editorial notebook

barb glen

Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting over. mark twain american writer, poet, playwright

W inside this week Contacts Barb Glen, Editor Ph: 306-665-3537 newsroom@producer.com Terry Fries, News editor Ph: 306-665-3538 newsroom@producer.com Fax: 306-934-2401 Michael Raine, Production Ph: 306-665-3592 mike.raine@producer.com

Garden in the desert: Irrigation has transformed agriculture in southern Alberta. See page 14. | file photo

special features

»»dryland farming: Drought »»Sask. dams: Two »» »» »» »» »» »»

is no stranger to the Prairies, but some have been far worse than others. 10 limited resource: Farmers find themselves in increasing competition for the Prairies’ limited water resources. 12 water trade: It’s not clear whether trade deals can be used to force Canada to sell water to the U.S. 16 growing dry: Drought tolerant crops are a major priority for plant breeders. 17 selling water: An argument is made for selling water by pipeline from Manitoba to the U.S. 18 birth of PFRA: The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration was born in the Dirty Thirties. 44 untapped reservoir: Action is urged to tap the full potential of Saskatchewan’s Lake Diefenbaker. 46

»» »» »» »» »» »»

Saskatchewan water reservoir projects have faded from the public eye. 48 water witch: This water dowser doesn’t understand his gift. He just knows it works. 50 deeper wells: Prairie residents who use wells are increasingly forced to go deeper to find water. 52 pothole storage: A large number of small reservoirs can replicate how potholes used to store water. 56 ground water: There is a lot that scientists don’t know about ground water and how it’s used. 58 water-hungry fuel: The biofuel industry is a large water user, but it’s track record is improving. 60 saving water: Families in northern B.C. go to great lengths to conserve water. 62

D’Arce McMillan, Markets Ph: 306-665-3519 darce.mcmillan@producer.com Karen Morrison, Farm Living Ph: 306-665-3585 karen.morrison@producer.com Paul Yanko, Website Ph: 306-665-3591 paul.yanko@producer.com Ed White, Winnipeg Ph: 204-943-6294 ed.white@producer.com Ron Lyseng, Winnipeg Ph: 204-654-1889 ron.lyseng@producer.com Robert Arnason, Brandon Ph: 204-726-9463 robert.arnason@producer.com Karen Briere, Regina Ph: 306-359-0841 karen.briere@producer.com Barbara Duckworth, Calgary Ph: 403-291-2990 barbara.duckworth@producer.com Mary MacArthur, Camrose Ph: 780-672-8589 mary.macarthur@producer.com Barry Wilson, Ottawa Ph: 613-232-1447 barry.wilson@producer.com Canada Post Agreement Number 40069240

ater defines agriculture on the Canadian Prairies and around the world.

The amount available to plants, animals and people determines productivity in many different ways — crop yields, feed and food availability, livestock production, processing and manufacturing capability, population growth — and our very existence.

In this special issue, we explore various aspects of water storage and use in western Canadian agriculture.

It is a deep topic and once we waded into it, reporters and editors were soon submerged in story ideas and information.

Eventually we emerged to the waist-deep level and put together the material on these pages. It is by no means a complete picture of agricultural water use but does explore a few of the topic’s many aspects.

It is said that one doesn’t fully appreciate water until the well runs dry or the river stops flowing. Many of our readers have had first-hand experience with these events.

Whether there is too little, too much or just the right amount for current needs, water always makes its own statement.

And there are those who opine that future wars will be fought over water rather than oil or politics or religion.

As Mark Twain said, “whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting over.”

There is no shortage of examples, nor is there any drought of fable and folklore surrounding water.

Subsequent pages focus on the facts of water, but the water tale below, written by Jean Yves Clavreul, is a clever story about local knowledge and careful observation.

It was originally published by IRC Water and Sanitation and we found it on the wateryear 2003 website.

A drilling team arrives in a little village close to Ouaninou in the western part of Ivory Coast. They are greeted with celebrations and excitement.

Team members are armed with satellite readings and maps that show them where they will find water. The whole village, especially the women, turn out to watch them as they start work, delighted at the thought of clean water for the whole

the water issue

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

102,789 litres

of water comes from 25 mm of rain falling over one acre of land |

year. No more long daily walks to water points in the dry season. No more suffering from the guinea worm, and no more sad funerals of people who die before their time.

Everyone leaves their work to see with their own eyes the water rushing out of the ground like fireworks. The teachers have to stop teaching, because the students run from the classrooms to be there when the miracle happens.

But the miracle does not happen at once. The first hole finds nothing and the drilling workers shift their equipment and carry on in the stifling heat, maps in hand. Little by little the villagers leave the drilling site and take up their daily activities again.

As the days go by the team moves its truck to a number of different places.

The satellite data says there is water.

The powerful drill comes up empty.

Almost three days of intense labour and not a trace of water. Their hopes turn to despair, drop by drop, in silence.

The old man watches for three days.

Every time the team starts work, he is there in his chair. He admires the tenacity of the workers, and he assumes that their impressive technology will solve their problems.

But by the evening of the third day, the old man cannot contain himself.

He approaches the man in charge, who can no longer look the villagers in the eye. He stares instead at the dusty ground.

The old man says, “I admire your courage. You are doing everything in your power to give us water, but may I give you some advice? In my long life I have observed that nature teaches us everything we need to survive on this earth.

“The water runs beneath the earth in small brooks. We cannot see these little brooks beneath the earth, but they exist.

“I have noticed that in the dry season the termite hills continue to grow. And termites need a lot of water. They look for water in the brooks deep down in the earth.

“I know the location of the termite hills in the fields around the village. I will show you. Put your machine there. You will find water.”

The next morning the drill is in place. The team starts drilling.

By noon, the village has water.

Water

by Philip Larkin

If I were called in To construct a religion I should make use of water.

Going to church Would entail a fording To dry, different clothes; My liturgy would employ Images of sousing, A furious devout drench, And I should raise in the east A glass of water Where any-angled light Would congregate endlessly.

Prairie Waters

by Night

by Carl Sandburg

Chatter of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water — sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains.

And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of dayend, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir chanting new psalms.

It is too much for the long willows when low laughter of a red moon comes down; and the willows drowse and sleep on the shoulders of the running water.

source: U.s. environmental protection agency

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the water issue

the water issue

70 percent

of all water worldwide is used for agricultural purposes |

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

5

source: protected water fund WP graphic | base map courtesy Agri-Environment Services Branch

1 7 * major lakes 1. Lake Athabasca

6

2. Lake Manitoba 3. Lake Winnepegosis

lake diefenbaker

4. Lake Winnipeg

Proponents continue to work to expand the irrigation potential of Saskatchewan’s Lake Diefenbaker, but frustration sets in as delays continue. See page 46.

5. Reindeer Lake 6. Wollaston Lake

5

alberta

* provincial dams &

reservoirs

Saskatchewan

manitoba

1. Alameda (Moose Mountain Creek) 2. Brazeau (North Saskatchewan)

2

3. Buffalo Pound (Qu’ Appelle) 4. Gardiner (South Saskatchewan) 5. Irwin (Whitemud)

meridian & highgate Proposals to build reservoirs on the South Saskatchewan River (Meridian Dam) and North Saskatchewan River (Highgate Dam) have dropped off the radar in recent years, but the projects continue to have their supporters. See page 48.

6. Katepwa (Qu’ Appelle) 7. Lake Abraham (N. Saskatchewan)

prairie reservoirs

8. Lake McGregor (Oldman)

Dams large and small form reservoirs that store water on the Prairies, including Lake McGregor, Oldman and St. Mary in Alberta, Gardiner, Katepwa, Rafferty and Alameda in Saskatchewan and Pleasant Valley, Shellmouth and Rivers in Manitoba. See pages 8-9.

9. Oldman 10. Pleasant Valley (Pleasant V. Creek) 11. Rafferty (Souris) 12. Rivers (Little Saskatchewan) 13. Rock Lake (Pembina) 14. Shellmouth (Assiniboine) 15. St. Mary

EDMONTON

2

16

5 4

* major rivers

7

3

1. Assiniboine River 2. Athabasca River 3. Bow River

SASKATOON

4. Milk River

16

5. North Saskatchewan

10

6. Oldman River

8

7. Peace River 8. Red Deer River 9. Red River

4

CALGARY 8

10. South Saskatchewan 11. Souris River

10

1

3

lethbridge 9 15

6

6

3

8

medicine hat

1

Swift Current

14

2

16

REGINA

12

1

brandon 11

4

WINNIPEG

5

1

11

1

9 13

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december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

water is a finite resource

how much water do we have?

Water conservation constantly encouraged | Canada has a large percentage of the world supply of fresh water, but that doesn’t mean it can be taken for granted. Water is never lost but it can become inaccessible for long periods

Web resources

»»Visit http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/ en/info/misc/e_faq.htm for a list of water conservation tips for home and work.

Some scientists say a small amount of water vapour escapes into space, while some water enters our atmosphere via comets, which scientists call “dirty snowballs.” | nasa photo

By Ron Lyseng Winnipeg bureau

M

edia messages continually urge people to stop wasting water: • Buy a low volume toilet.

• Buy household appliances that use less water.

• Don’t wash your car or water the lawn.

• Buy toothpaste that requires less water.

• Take shorter showers or none at all.

After repeated water warnings, they tend to be ignored.

Q.

How can they say we waste water? Don’t we have a natural moisture cycle that keeps bringing it back?

A.

We don’t consume water in the same way we consume fuel.

The fuel is burned and gone forever.

Water returns through the moisture cycle. We don’t destroy it.

When it goes down the drain, water eventually returns somewhere. It might go into a septic field or meander into a pothole to evaporate into

Only 0.036 percent of the planet’s water is available for human use. This is the water in rivers, lakes and wells that produce potable water.

the atmosphere or replenish the water table. It might find its way into a creek and someday into the ocean or it goes to a sewage treatment plant to get cleaned up.

But the fact remains that used water remains here on Earth as a liquid, a vapour or a solid in the form of ice. It’s in a constant cycle, evaporating from land and ocean surfaces, travelling through the atmosphere, raining down on land and running down to the ocean again.

One water molecule might be used by man, plants and animals many times before it gets back to the sea, where it evaporates again and falls as rain, perhaps on a different continent.

However, as oceans grow, they can hold a greater volume of water without a corresponding increase in the surface area for evaporation.

Q. A.

How much water do we have, anyway?

Obviously the exact amount is hard to determine. Scientists think it’s about 326 million trillion gallons. It takes 21 zeros to express that number.

Of that, only 0.036 percent is available for human use. This is the water in rivers, lakes and wells that produce potable water.

Q. A.

Do we lose atmospheric moisture to outer space?

Scientists disagree. Some say we lose small amounts of vapour to space.

Others say it’s possible but we gain enough from space particles to make up the difference.

Earth is gradually losing its atmosphere to space, according to the Environmental Ear th S cience Archive of the U.S. Department of Energy.

one week

is the length of time a human can live without water. |

Water vapour splits into basic hydrogen and oxygen molecules by the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. The hydro g en mole cules are light enough to escape the atmosphere.

Nobody knows how much.

The only new water comes from comets entering the atmosphere.

Scientists call them dirty snowballs because they consist of ice and dust.

When new ice melts close to Earth, it gains a little bit of water. Again, nobody knows how much.

Water trapped deep inside the Earth comes to the surface occasionally when volcanoes erupt. Like hydrogen loss and comet ice, this is not a large volume and nobody really knows how much.

Some scientists say that, given enough millions of years, Earth may evolve into a heavy oxygen rich planet that will be barren and devoid of life. When the hydrogen is gone, so too will water be gone.

Scientists agree that, for the most part, we live in a closed system. The gains and losses are too small to measure or worry about. And, with 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water available, they’re probably right.

source: U.S. environmental protection agency

the water issue

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7

many ways to measure moisture

Measuring tools: probes, meters and pillows Technology simplifies process | Measuring the amount of snowpack, stream flow and available water is no easy task but innovations have allowed experts to become more accurate

By Robert Arnason Brandon bureau

I

t’s easy to look out the window and conclude that four inches of snow fell overnight, but accurately measuring snow depth is challenging, says Alf Warkentin, director of flood forecasting for Manitoba Water Stewardship.

“It’s never as accurate as we’d like it to be. The snow is very difficult to measure.… You can do a snow survey sample on one field and get 75 mm.

Then you drive a mile to another field and you get half of that,” said Warkentin, who noted snow gauges are not much better.

“A lot of our heavy snow comes with strong winds, and then the gauges don’t catch properly. A lot of the snow blows over top of the gauge.”

It’s also tricky to determine the amount of water in the soil and how much water is flowing in streams.

But technology is evolving to help water experts, like Warkentin, edge closer to an accurate picture of the amount of water in the snow, the soil and streams of Western Canada.

Measuring snowfall and soil moisture As Warkentin noted, the amount of snow on the ground can vary greatly within a short distance. Accurately measuring soil moisture is also a headache because one part of the field may be extremely wet but a location at slightly higher elevation may be significantly drier.

Consequently, scientists need to gather an immense amount of data and calculate the average from hundreds of readings.

Instead of having a technician trudge through snow-covered fields with sample bags and a measuring stick, Warkentin and his colleagues collect most of their data from the air.

While flying over a strip of land approximately 13 kilometres long, a sensor inside the plane detects the amount of gamma (short wavelength) radiation emitted from the earth.

“The soil emits gamma radiation because there’s radioactive elements in the soil and if you have an accurate detector, you can find out … the strength of that radiation signal.”

If there’s a high percentage of water in the soil and when snow is deeper, it blocks gamma rays and reduces the signal detected in the plane.

After comparing the amount of radiation to a baseline signal, it’s

A technologist with the Water Survey of Canada measures the flow in a stream using a current meter. The device has cups that spin around as water flows by and the technologist counts the number of revolutions to determine the velocity of the water | water survey of canada photo possible to estimate how much snow is on the ground and the amount of water in the soil.

To achieve a more accurate estimate, scientists combine the data from the plane with snow measurements done the old-fashioned way, on the ground.

“We actually go out and weigh (snow samples) and figure out the water content,” Warkentin said.

In the mountains of Alberta, technicians also take samples of snow, but don’t rely on airplanes and gamma rays for the bulk of the data.

Instead, automated gauges in strategic locations collect snowpack information in the Rockies, said Scott Vatcher, a river flow forecaster with Alberta Environment.

“They’re called snow pillows…. By the weight of the snow on this pillow, they can figure out the water content of the snow,” he said.

A snow pillow is a three metre diameter bladder filled with antifreeze solution, according to Alberta Environment’s website. As snow accumulates on the pillow, it pushes antifreeze out of the bladder and into

a standpipe. The height of the fluid in the standpipe measures the weight of water on the pillow.

Measuring stream flow Similar to measuring snow, the methods used to estimate stream flow are becoming more technical.

However, many readings are still collected by an employee standing in a stream, said Dan Selinger, hydrological services supervisor at Water Survey of Canada, a department of Environment Canada that gathers

data on water quantity.

A technician will stand in a stream with a current meter, a device with small cups that spin around as the water flows by. The employee then counts the number of times the cups revolve.

“If you get 10 revolutions in 40 seconds … there’s a chart corresponding to that,” said Selinger, who is based in Regina.

When the river or stream is too deep for wading, the technician will lower a current meter from a bridge.

“We’ll lower a big lead weight, it looks like a little bomb, down into the water,” Selinger said. The meter is attached to the lead weight.

Gathering water flow data this way takes time because technicians have to take 20 to 25 readings at one cross section of a stream. They also measure the water depth for each reading to calculate the area of the cross section. “(We) follow the simple equation that discharge equals velocity times area,” said Selinger. But this time consuming method of calculating stream flow is coming to an end.

“We’ve made quite a shift towards the newer technology.”

The new technology is a device called an acoustic velocity flow meter, which works on the Doppler principle.

“An acoustic signal, a sound wave, is sent out from the sensor and based on what happens to that signal in the water it calculates the water velocity,” Selinger said. “The sensor also obtains a water level and calculates a cross sectional area. It then applies the velocity to the cross sectional area producing a discharge rate in continuous real time.… The data we get out of it is a lot better.”

That accuracy comes at a cost. Each acoustic velocity flow meter has a price tag of $50,000 or more.

But collecting water data is worth it, Warkentin said. Without detailed information, accurate forecasts are impossible.

“To get good data is not easy. It’s one of the main impediments to water management.”

We’ve made quite a shift towards the newer technology. alf warkentin manitoba water stewardship

one month

is the length of time a human can live without food. |

source: U.S. environmental protection agency

december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

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water storage capability crucial for agricultural use

Gardiner dam tops the list of 15 largest water storage facilities on prairies

Capacity measured in cubic decametres | There are many dams and reservoirs on the Prairies. Here is a list of the top five in each of the prairie provinces.

ABOVE: Most of the 641,000 cubic decametres of stored water capacity managed by Manitoba’s water stewardship department are stored in the Shellmouth Reservoir on the Assiniboine River on the eastern side of the province . | John Buermeyer photo LEFT: Gardiner Dam, the largest earth-fill dam in Canada, creates Saskatchewan’s Lake Diefenbaker, which has a capacity of 9.4 million cubic decametres. | Bruce A. Johnson photo

reservoir sites Top five reservoirs in each province, by capacity (dam3):* Manitoba Name river capacity Shellmouth Assiniboine 479,000 Rock Lake Pembina 70,000 Rivers Little Sask.

30,000 15,000 Pleasant Valley P. V. Creek Irwin Whitemud 4,700

S

pring thaw isn’t on the minds of most Canadians yet, but water forecasters have been thinking about melting snow for months.

“Nov. 1 is called the start of the new water year because basically any precipitation that falls, for the most part, from (November) on in is going to be snow and won’t show up into the rivers until next year,” said Scott

Vatcher, river flow forecaster with Alberta’s environment ministry.

November may seem early to begin gathering data on snow depths in the Rocky Mountains, but the precipitation data is crucial for government agencies that operate the hundreds of water reservoirs on the Prairies.

The primary operators of water reservoirs are Alberta Environment, the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority, Manitoba Water Stewardship and the federal government’s Agri-Environment Services Branch (AESB), for-

merly called the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration.

Alberta The Alberta government owns 200 of the province’s 1,400 dams. Twenty-three of them are in southern Alberta and their reservoirs can store five million cubic decameters.

One cubic decameter is a standard unit to measure reservoir volume and is equivalent to one million litres.

Saskatchewan The Saskatchewan Watershed Authority operates 44 reservoirs. The largest reservoirs — Gardiner, Rafferty, Alameda, Blackstrap North, Blackstrap South, Buffalo Pound and Katepwa — can hold back 10.4 cubic decametres of water.

The Gardiner Dam is the largest earth fill dam in Canada and has a reservoir capacity of 9.4 million cubic decametres. For comparison, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam,

Oldman

lethbridge

alta.

St. Mary

Milk River

Saskatchewan Name river capacity Gardiner S. Sask 9,400,000 Rafferty Souris 439,600 Katepwa Qu’ Appelle 229,000 Alameda Moose Mtn. Creek 105,000 91,300 Buffalo Pound Qu’ Appelle

DID YOU KNOW …

A cubic decameter (dam3) is the volume of a cube whose side lengths each measure one decametre (10 m). 1 dam3 = 1,000 m3

enough water in that reservoir so that we can provide adequate flows for irrigation and for municipal and industrial use,” he said, referring specifically to the Shellmouth Reservoir.

Wiebe said as a reservoir operator, the AESB has flexibility in maintaining water level, but the branch is expected to operate within a specified range, according to the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority.

“The province is the resource manager,” Wiebe said. “They understand and know what the reservoir capaci-

ties are and what the downstream demands are and the licensed uses.”

Flow in and flow out essentially determines how much water is in a reservoir, but siltation is also a factor.

Silt can reduce the storage capacity of a reservoir, but it depends on the river and the land it flows through.

Silt buildup has reduced the capacity of a reservoir on the Milk River in Montana by 30 percent.

However, Wiebe said silt buildup isn’t a significant problem for AESB’s reservoirs in Saskatchewan.

Katepwa

SASKATOON

Sask.

Ass ini bo ine Riv er

REGINA So ur is

Rafferty Gardiner

Qu’Appelle River

Mo os eM tn .

Ri ve r

Sask.

Pleasant Valley Shellmouth

Alameda Cr ee k

a tob ani eM Lak

Lake McGregor

Alberta Name river capacity Lake Abraham N. Sask. 1,415,000 Oldman Oldman 494,000 Brazeau N. Sask.

483,000 St. Mary St. Mary 395,000 367,000 Lake McGregor Oldman *On rivers that flow through agricultural zones

er Riv ine bo ini Ass

source: United Nations

Manitoba has 58 dams in its cropgrowing regions. Those reservoirs,

r ve Ri

litres of water are needed to produce one person’s daily food |

Manitoba

operated by the AESB and Manitoba Water Stewardship, have a full supply level of 641,000 cubic decametres.

Most of that water is in the Shellmouth Reservoir on the Assiniboine River near Russell. It has a full supply level of 480,000 cubic decametres.

Alf Warkentin, director of flood forecasting for Manitoba Water Stewardship, said detailed data on snow depths, snow water content and soil moisture is essential to manage reservoir water levels.

“We have to make sure that we have

w Bo

2,000 - 5,000

Lake Mead, is the largest in the United States and has a capacity of 35 million cubic decametres.

The AESB operate 33 reservoirs in Saskatchewan with a full supply level volume of 500,000 cubic decametres, said Rob Wiebe, manager of Agriculture Canada’s water infrastructure division.

S. S ask . Riv er

Brandon bureau

Ri ve r

By Robert Arnason

Ol dm an

8

man.

Rivers

brandon

WP graphic | base map courtesy Agri-Environment Services Branch

9

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the water issue

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the water issue

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11

Historically, success or failure on the prairies has depended on water

history creates legacy of concerns over In comparison The drought of the

1930s

cost the federal and provincial governments

$175 million

Dry, dry, dry | Periods of drought have in many ways defined agriculture on the Prairies.

Though farmers often think of the Dirty Thirties as the worst drought in recent history, the most expensive drought occurred in 2001-02

By Miranda Burski Saskatoon newsroom

The drought of

2001-02,

which affected British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, cost the country

$5 billion

likelihood of future punishing droughts

T

here are certain guarantees that come with living on the Prairies.

One of the most definitive is drought.

It affects the landscape, the economy and, in many cases, livelihoods.

“The prairie natural region, the Prairies, is defined by the repeated occurrence of drought that prevents trees from surviving in this climate,” says Dave Sauchyn, a University of Regina geography professor who works from the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative.

“No place else in Canada is defined in terms of drought like that.”

Droughts have been part of the prairie climate since long before the region’s first settlers.

About 6,000 years ago, the region received so little moisture that water basins such as the one at Lake Manitoba dried up.

In the 1790s, the soil was dr y enough that the dunes began moving in the Great Sand Hills of southwestern Saskatchewan. This drought was also severe enough that the North Saskatchewan River didn’t have enough water in some places to float a canoe.

A drought from the late 1840s to the early 1860s was severe enough to convince John Palliser, a geographer and explorer, that much of the region was unsuitable for development.

These drought periods, among others, have been enough to convince many researchers that recent generations haven’t experienced a truly bad prairie drought.

“That’s where we think that we, being the nonaboriginal population, haven’t been here long enough to see how bad droughts can really get,” Sauchyn said.

“The longer you go back, the more likely you are to find droughts that are quite a bit worse than the ones that we’ve seen.”

The period covering the past 120 years, particularly from the late 1890s to early 1900s, is considered to be the second wettest period discovered in prairie history so far. The wettest was approximately 1,200 years ago, from

700 to 900 AD. “That’s not to say that every year has been wet in that period, it’s just that in the past it seems that it was more often drier than wetter and now it’s more often wetter than drier,” said Peter Leavitt, a U of R biology professor and Canada Research Chair.

The past century has also had its dry periods, one of the most significant being the Dirty Thirties.

“Of the last 100, 120 years, certainly the 1920s and ’30s were the longest period of drought,” Sauchyn said.

It occurred from 1929 to 1938, with the severest years being 1936-38. At times the drought affected virtually all of the Palliser Triangle, an area covering most of the southern Prairies.

The lack of precipitation and frequency of high winds led to dust storms throughout the area, and the lack of moisture eventually led to near starvation conditions.

T h e s e v e r i t y o f t h i s d ro u g h t prompted many farm families to leave, reversing the population flow for the first time since European immigration began in the 1870s.

The government responded with policies and programs such as the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, which were intended to rehabilitate soil and farms, assist people living in drought-affected regions and sometimes relocate people to more promising locations.

Although the drought of the 1930s cost the federal and provincial governments significant amounts of money — almost $175 million was provided for rural relief in Saskatchewan — the most expensive drought on record, according to Environment Canada, was that of 2001-02, which affected British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia and cost the country $5 billion.

Elaine Wheaton of the Saskatchewan Research Council said some producers were able to deal with that drought more effectively than others largely because of past experiences.

“People in, say, northeast Saskatchewan that have more experience with too much moisture or frost, had more difficulty with the drought, especially by 2002 when the drought shifted northward.”

Far left: Drought in the Dirty Thirties caused widespread and prolonged crop failure and soil erosion. near left: Climate experts say the Prairies cycle between periods of drought and periods of moisture.

This photo shows one of the dry cycles in Saskatchewan.

Bottom left: Canola crops suffer in dry conditions of Alberta’s Peace River region in 2008.

Bottom right: Water availability also determines the viability of livestock operations on the Prairies. | File photos

Improving their drought preparedness is really important because droughts are a natural part and a very intrinsic part of the prairie climate, and we’re bound to have droughts. elaine wheaton Sask. research council

The Prairies (are) defined by the repeated occurrence of drought that prevents trees from surviving in this climate.

No place else in Canada is defined in terms of drought like that. dave sauchyn university of regina

Community support is vital for many farmers in a drought, such as the HayWest project of 2002, in which producers from Eastern Canada shipped hay to those in the West to make sure they were able to feed their cattle. | file photo Updating their infrastructure is one w a y f a r m e r s h av e a d a p t e d t o drought. Irrigation systems became more common, as did dugouts and reservoirs.

Wheaton said financial assistance can also help, particularly to buy expensive feed for livestock. Unfortunately, feed isn’t always available.

“In that case, you have to be really

resourceful to learn how to use, say, other sources of feed or whatever you need in that instance.”

Wheaton said community support is vital for many farmers in a drought.

“If you’re stressed, it just really helps to talk with your network or the farm stress network,” she said.

This support can extend beyond

community borders.

As a part of Hay West in 2002, for example, people from eastern provinces sent hay to those in the West to help ensure that producers could feed their cattle.

However, Wheaton said it’s best for farmers to prepare for a drought ahead of time. She recommended storing more food and water, particularly for cattle, and reducing the risk of wind erosion.

“Improving their drought preparedness is really important because droughts are a natural part and a very intrinsic part of the prairie climate, and we’re bound to have droughts,” she said.

Unfortunately, predetermining when a drought will hit can be difficult.

“There’s, at this point, no evidence of any kind of cycle that would be

75 percent

of canada’s agricultural water use is on the prairies, mostly for irrigation |

predictive,” Leavitt said.

He said multiple factors contribute to a severe drought, particularly an absence of snowfall in the preceding winter, which affects soil moisture and lake water levels.

“We’re starting to think that climate conditions in the late winter-early spring are as or more important than summer conditions.”

Sauchyn said the Prairies seem to cycle between wet and dry periods.

“We have very strong climate cycles, so the climate naturally cycles from wet to dry every so many years,” he said.

Scientists are still trying to determine why this occurs, but they have found that it seems to have something to do with the temperature of the Pacific Ocean, which is where most of the region’s water and snowfall originates.

source: environment canada

charting drought

top 10 driest years

top 10 wettest years

A historical look at growing season precipitation totals (1960-2004) shows the variability of precipitation on the Prairies. The analysis showed that: 1961 was the driest year recorded.

Departure from average precipitation (%), April 1 to Oct. 31, Prairie average: 1. 1961 -49.2

Departure from average precipitation (%), April 1 to Oct. 31, Prairie average: 1. 1993 70.8

»» »»1993 was the wettest year recorded. »»The most extensive and severe precipitation deficits were recorded in 1961 and 1967.

»»There were years when dry condi-

tions were concentrated mostly in the southern regions. These included 1971, 1973, 1977, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1996, 1997 and 2001.

»»Dry conditions covered an exten-

sive area of the northern regions in 1963, 1965 (Alberta), 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1981, 1990, 1992, 1998 and 2002.

»»Dry zones are not consistent. The

most extensive dry area in 1999 was the Peace Region of northwestern Alberta. This changed to the southwestern region of Alberta in 2000. Likewise, the driest zone in 2001 was in the southern regions of the Prairies but this changed to the northern regions in 2002.

»»During the growing season, pre-

cipitation is mostly controlled by thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are random and results in precipitation variability.

»»There were no years in the data set

that could be described as extreme wet years (average precipitation being in excess of 200 percent), but there were isolated areas that received extreme wet conditions.

Source: Environment Canada

2. 1967 -48.4

2. 2002 31.4

3. 1979 -34.1

3. 1991 31.4

4. 1984 -32.1

4. 1963 30.8

5. 1960 -24.9

5. 1975 23.5

6. 2001 -20.5

6. 1965 21.1

7. 1996 -17.8

7. 1966 20.6

8. 1964 -16.1

8. 1976 12.6

9. 1985 -14.4

9. 1987 11.1

10. 1974 -13.6

10. 1998 11.0

0 20 40 60%

0 20 40 60 80% WP graphic | Source: Environment Canada

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december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

growing demands on Alberta water are forcing examination of tough alternatives

Water allocation likely to involve tradeoffs Recommendations to improve Alberta’s water management and allocation have generated discussion on water licences, fair distribution and sharing when existing allocations are not completely used by licensees

Recent reports in Alberta have recommended ways to better allocate water for social, environmental and economic needs. |

By Barbara Duckworth Calgary bureau

A

lberta has a good water management foundation, but enhancements are needed to ensure the province can handle future growth demands.

Those are the conclusions of a recent report presented to the provincial environment minister and released in November on long-term water sustainability and allocation of Alberta’s water.

Two other reports from the Alberta Water Council and Alberta Water Research Institute have also recommended ways to better allocate water for social, environmental and economic needs.

Water management has been an issue since the first irrigation act was passed in 1894 and little has changed since, said University of Alberta water lawyer David Percy, who

Farming is quite a difficult business and it is easy to say, ‘get water from the farmers,’ but this could have quite big impacts on our ability to produce food efficiently. kurt klein university of lethbridge

chaired the minister’s advisory group on recommendations for improving Alberta’s water management and allocation.

“It has been controversial since day one,” he said.

The report offered 11 recommendations, including the concept of protected water. For example, the South Saskatchewan River basin has a water conservation objective of 45

percent of natural flow and full allocation for the remainder.

The committee said a provincial conservation objective should be placed on every river to prevent future problems of full allocation.

Percy favours water transfers among existing licence holders because no new licences are allowed on the South Saskatchewan River basin.

About 40 transfers have occurred successfully with little fanfare since 2002. They were allowed under the 1999 water act that Percy helped craft.

A major question for the committee was how to fairly distribute water when a licensee has more than could be possibly used.

The water act prohibits arbitrary sharing. Instead, those needing water approach a licensee to see if they are willing to sell and share.

“It actually encourages us to make more out of our existing supply of

file photo

water,” he said.

The best way to accommodate new business is for farmers or urban municipalities to conserve water and then sell the balance.

“If you don’t go for market transfers, then the government would have to step in and take it, which few would support,” Percy said.

However, the logistics of these kinds of transfers are cumbersome.

“Most of those minor agriculture transfers that happened were totally noncontroversial and could be approved very quickly. We should only have a long drawn out process when there is a very serious transfer that affects the environment,” he said.

Water allocations can be sold for one year or as part of a larger, more permanent agreement.

Permanent transfers have considerable costs and conditions under Alberta’s environment regulations,

684 million acre of the world’s land uses irrigation for crop production.

the water issue

and the government has the right to claw back 10 percent of the water.

“In every transaction so far, they have taken the 10 percent, so the buyer and the seller have found this tax to be a little bit high,” said University of Lethbridge economist Kurt Klein.

“There is resentment about that.”

On the other hand, Percy argues that this tax encourages conservation.

Klein is working on a large multidisciplinary study of the socio-economic impacts of water allocation, marketing and conflicts that may occur when further demands are placed on the Alberta water supply.

The impacts of a water market entered the public debate when the Western Irrigation District made a water deal with a mall developer east of Calgary.

The local municipality told the developer it could not proceed with the $1 billion project until adequate water was found. The district was paid $15 million for water and modernized its facilities to prevent evaporation and seepage losses. The conserved water was then turned over to the municipality to service the mall.

“There will likely be the need for more of these kinds of water transactions in the future,” Klein said.

The U of L project hopes to find ways to reduce conflict between user groups. Klein is looking at how these conflicting demands affect agriculture production.

“As the economy grows with no new water for allocation, new users will have to get their water needs supplied by existing water licence holders,” he said.

Irrigation districts and the City of Calgar y hold large licences far beyond what they use. Klein worries more new users will demand a share of agriculture’s allocation.

He wants to determine how limits on agricultural water use would affect farm income, crop production and asset values of farms.

“Farming is quite a difficult business and it is easy to say ‘get water from the farmers,’ but this could have quite big impacts on our ability to produce food efficiently,” he said.

A market system is an efficient way to allocate resources, including water, but Klein said there is little experience in making it work in Canada. The country has no auction or other mechanism to organize buyers and sellers as is done in other countries.

The new buyers might be food processing firms, biofuel plants, malls, rural and urban municipalities, suburban developments, recreation or private irrigators.

Environmental lobbies are raising objections to buying and selling water. They believe it should be confiscated, which also creates conflict.

“Moving water around is not as simple as buying a television set because it affects other people,” he said.

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

dams, dikes & gates: a glossary Reservoirs store and control primary water supplies for irrigation. In Alberta, most of the stored water is from spring snowmelt. The stored water may back into a natural coulee, valley or lake that is usually enlarged for extra capacity. Reservoirs may be built on-stream or off-stream.

Dams in Alberta are earthen or rock filled. Diversion structures direct water from a reservoir into the stream or diversion canal. Spillways protect the reservoir embankments and irrigation structures, and control the flow of flood waters.

Border dikes make surface or flood irrigation more efficient. Water is supplied from a delivery ditch at the upper end of a graded field, using syphons or turnouts.

Excess water is collected at the lower end of the field, then channeled to a return flow. The fields are usually levelled to follow a downslope of less than 2% to decrease erosion.

Return flow channels carry excess irrigation water back to a river or reservoir. They can include natural drainage systems or man-made canals.

13

Water rates Drop structures placed at intervals along a channel stabilize it by changing its profile from a continuous steep gradient to a series of more gently sloping reaches.

Pipelines can be used to replace surface canals and to bring water from the canals to farm pivots. They are usually located underground.

Check structures are built into canals to raise and hold water at a specific level and facilitate upstream delivery.

Turnouts are used to divert water from a canal or other supply source. Multi-piped turnouts with motorized and computer-controlled gates are used to divert larger amounts of water. On-farm turnouts may be only gated culverts.

Gates are used to open and close turnouts and other diversion structures. Trash screens are often used to keep gates from clogging.

Source: Irrigation in Alberta, Alberta Agriculture

Alberta irrigation districts annual water rates ($/assessed acre) District*

1990 2000 2008

Aetna

8.00* 8.00* 10.00*

Bow River

10.00 14.50 14.50*

Eastern

8.50 7.50 0.00

Leavitt

8.00* 8.00* 11.50*

Lethbridge N. 13.50* 14.00* 14.00* Magrath

6.00 7.50* 9.00*

Mtn. View

6.20

8.00 12.00

Ross Creek

6.00

8.50 21.00

Raymond

6.50 8.50 9.50*

St. Mary R.

14.00 17.50 18.75

Taber

12.00 12.00 8.00

United

3.75 7.50 8.50

Western

11.00 16.25 *16.25*

* These districts levy the following additional surcharges: Aetna: $2 per acre for pipeline delivery in township 2; $3 per acre for pipeline delivery in township 3 Bow River: 60 cent per acre inch for excess water use on flood parcels Leavitt: $3 per acre for pipeline delivery Lethbridge North: 15 cent per p.s.i. for pressure pipeline up to and including 40 p.s.i.; 30 cent per p.s.i. for pressure pipeline above 40 p.s.i.

Magrath: $1 per 10 p.s.i. for pressure pipeline Raymond: $100 per acre inch for volumes over the annual allocation of 17 inches Western: $3.10 per 10 p.s.i. delivered Source: Alberta Agriculture

The City of Calgary holds a large water licence involving more water than it uses. |

file photo

res (20 percent) The other 80 percent relies on rainfall |

source: united nations

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december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

water access brings life to southern alberta

Irrigation allows production of 40 crops Vast network of canals and watering systems | The amount of irrigated acreage has likely peaked because no more water allocation is available.

However, one district manager says area farmers use the same amount of water today as they did in 1935

By Barbara Duckworth Calgary bureau

T

he first homesteaders to settle in what is now southern Alberta realized that irrigation would make the difference to their survival.

By the late 19th century, private groups were building canals and water delivery systems, and in 1910 t h e Ca na d i a n Pa c i f i c Ra i l way embarked on two projects south of Calgary called the Eastern Block and the Western Block.

In 1935, the company said it could not afford to continue operating the system so a takeover was negotiated with local farmers.

The result was the Eastern and Western Irrigation Districts, which are run like municipalities and controlled by elected farmer boards.

Today, 13 irrigation districts bring water to 1.5 million acres in an area that stretches from south of Calgary to the U.S. border. It represents 65 percent of all Canada’s irrigation.

The Alber ta government has granted the districts licences to withdraw river water totalling more than 3.8 million cubic decameters, mak-

ing the irrigators the largest users of water in the province. The districts withdraw on average 67 percent of their allocation.

“We use the same amount of water today as we did in 1935 when we took over from the CPR,” said Earl Wilson, manager of the Eastern Irrigation District, which consists of 1.4 million acres and supplies water to farms, industry and communities.

Without irrigation, the dry, sunny south would not have its diversity of m o re t ha n 4 0 c ro p s, s a i d Ro n McMullin, manager of the Alberta Irrigation Projects Association. The potato, dry bean, sugar beet and vegetables industries would not exist, he added.

The amount of irrigated acreage has probably peaked with only minor expansion plans. No more water is available beyond what is already allocated because the provincial government halted new licences in the South Saskatchewan River basin two years ago.

“The water supply isn’t there to create another 50,000 acres of irrigation,” McMullin said.

“The water supply is finite and the districts realize that.”

Without irrigation, Alberta’s dry, sunny south would not have its diversity of more than 40 crops.

The potato, dry bean, sugar beet and vegetable industries would not exist. ron mcmullin alberta irrigation projects association

The districts manage the network of canals, river diversions and delivery systems, but the farmers are expected to use water wisely.

In drought years, the districts reduce the amount of water they deliver to individual farms.

“If they have higher value crops like potatoes or sugar beets, they may irrigate their grains less and put their water on the beets and potatoes,” McMullin said.

He said farmers and districts have conserved approximately one per-

cent of the water received per year since the 1960s because of better agriculture practices and new water delivery technology. They have reduced water losses to seepage, runoff, evaporation and wind drift.

The most water-efficient systems are pivot or lineal move systems with drop tubes and low-pressure spray nozzles designed to meet crop and soil requirements. Surface irrigation systems have been made more efficient by using gated pipe, surge valves and siphon tubes.

MOVING THE WATER FROM POINT A TO POINT B

Left: An irrigation equipment worker fits together a pipeline while installing a pivot irrigation system near Outlook, Sask. Upon completion, the system will operate like the one shown at right. | File photo, left, doug blackport photo, right

the water issue

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

15

on 1.5 million southern alberta acres

A canola field is irrigated near Vauxhall, Alta. | A government grant is available to help cover some of farmers’ costs to convert to a low-pressure pivot.

Further losses have been prevented with ongoing rehabilitation projects in which the province and districts share costs 75-25.

District money comes from farmers’ water use fees that range from zero in the Eastern Irrigation District to $21 per acre in the Ross Creek Irrigation District in Cypress County. Charges in the other districts’ are $9 to $16 per acre.

File photo

The Eastern Irrigation District has not charged fees since 2003 because of oil and gas revenues. It is unique among the districts because it is also a large landowner of 600,000 acres in southeastern Alberta.

The district covers 1.5 million acres, including dryland, on which it runs 10 community pastures and 100 private grazing lease agreements on native range.

Outside income helped its 1,000 farmer members install about 1,000 kilometres of pipeline to deliver

water. The district has 2,000 km of canals in total.

“It is something that you have to continue to do. The canal system here is about 100 years old,” Wilson said.

Water conservation is critical in this area because it receives less than 10 inches of precipitation during the year.

In 2000-01 an average of three inches fell in quarter inch increments.

“Those two years back to back were almost as bad as the ’30s,” he said.

“You plan on having those kind of years for (planning) your water consumption. Our plan is to be able to handle three 2001s back to back and not break the farmers.”

However, it is hard to predict how much water is available from year to year because they depend on runoff, snowpack and precipitation. Some years have almost no runoff but timely rain in May and June can set up the district for the summer.

“We look at the system as if we are in the first year of a drought every time we start. We can always change in July but you can’t reverse it,” he said.

“We start every season as if it was going to be a disaster and react accordingly.”

ALBERTA’S IRRIGATION SYSTEM Irrigation districts

length of distribution system (km)

land under irrigation (acres)

Aetna 27 Bow River 1,058 km Eastern 1,784 km Leavitt 56 km Lethbridge Northern 650 km Magrath 106 km Mountain View 35 km Raymond 247 km Ross Creek 20 km St. Mary River 1,719 km Taber 364 km 227 km United Western 1,077 km Private Licences: 277,833 Total Assessed for irrigation: 1,430,011 acres

1,930 198,201 274,947 4,601 122,381 11,189 1,053 32,260 1,055 342,765 76,874 17,278 67,645

Source: Alberta Agriculture

We use the same amount of water today as we did in 1935 when we took over from the CPR. Earl wilson Eastern irrigation district

thirsty row crops demand lots of water

Southern Alberta bounty: High-yielding crops of sugar beets, corn and potatoes wouldn’t be possible in typically dry southern Alberta without the benefits of irrigation.

2,000

kilometres of canals move water in the eastern irrigation district

| File photos

16

december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

cross-boundary water issues

The governments of the United States and Canada should direct more effort to allaying the public’s concern that international trade law obligations could prevent Canada and the United States from taking measures to protect waters in the boundary region … joint commission Report

canada-u.s. water laws murky International Joint Commission is the governing body | Among issues needing clarification is whether trade agreements can force either country to export water

By Barry Wilson Ottawa bureau

T

he International Joint Commission, established a century ago to manage disputes about surface waters that cross the Canada-United States border, has urged both governments to clarify some still-murky cross-boundary

water issues.

If there are future disputes over use of ground water, including aquifer draining, would the IJC rules of water sharing apply? Can trade agreements force either country to export water?

The IJC recommendations in an earlier report applied to water management in the Great Lakes Basin but water policy experts say they could

apply to border area water sources across the country.

The IJC recommended that both national governments agree to study the implications for water use on groundwater supplies.

“In recognition of the frequent and per vasive interaction between groundwater and surface water and the virtual impossibility of distin-

guishing between them in some instances, governments should apply the precautionary principle with respect to removals and consumptive use of groundwater in the basin,” said the report.

And on the implications of trade law on water, the report recommended more clarity from governments.

“The governments of the United States and Canada should direct more effort to allaying the public’s concern that international trade law obligations could prevent Canada and the United States from taking measures to protect waters in the boundary region and they also need to direct more effort to bringing greater clarity and consensus to the issue.”

Meera Karunananthan, water campaigner for the Council of Canadians, says the governments have virtually ignored those recommendations in the years since they were made.

“These are strong recommendations but frankly, they have not been acted on,” she said. Ground water in Canada has not been accurately mapped and the implications of trade deals remain unclear.

At the commission, public affairs adviser Bernard Beckhoff said the IJC may have to turn its attention to the ground water issue at some time if asked, “but the IJC has not received any references specific to ground water.”

It is unclear what jurisdiction the commission would have if there was a complaint that, on one side of the border or another, an undue amount of water was being pumped from an aquifer that crosses the border underground.

The IJC, created in 1909 when Wilfrid Laurier was prime minister and William Howard Taft was U.S. president, was meant to “prevent and resolve disputes over the use of waters shared by Canada and the United States,” says the IJC’s centennial annual report.

At issue were surface water bodies including the Great Lakes, the Niagara River, the Souris River basin and St. Mary and Milk River systems in Alberta-Montana.

In fact, growing conflict between Alberta and Montana was one of the factors in creating the dispute resolution body.

“Settlers in Montana and Alberta were building competing canals to divert the waters of the St. Mary and Milk River for their own use,” said the IJC report.

Setting water-sharing rules was a key part of IJC work.

On Oct. 4, 1921, commissioners met in Ottawa to sign a water apportionment agreement affecting Saskatchewan, Alberta and Montana.

The rivers “are to be treated as one stream for the purposes of irrigation and power and the waters shall be apportioned equally between the two countries,” it said, although all jurisdictions could take more than their half share from the closest river and at different times of the year as long as the end result was 50-50.

The rules have survived the years.

the water issue

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

17

$300 million in losses to alberta’s barley crop caused by drought in 2002 |

source: alberta research council

modifying crop water use

Drought tolerance a major initiative Crop research continues | Whether new varieties are genetically modified or not, researchers continue the quest for tolerance

By Sean Pratt Saskatoon newsroom

A

nthony Anyia might be one of the only growers in Alberta who embraced last year’s drought.

The conditions proved ideal for the Alberta Research Council researcher, who was field testing high and low water use efficiency lines of barley and mapping a population that was a cross between the two.

“For us it kind of created the right environment to do the testing,” he said.

Anyia said Canadian barley breeders have produced disease resistant and good malting quality varieties for farmers, but they have struggled to improve yield because of the Prairies’ short and dry growing season.

Ca na d i a n b a r l e y y i e l d s have remained almost flat over the last two decades and are lower than most other major barley producing countries.

The Alberta Research Council is attempting to buck that trend by creating a tool to help breeders develop varieties that make better use of what little water is available during dry years.

Anyia and his team are attempting to identify genetic markers or pieces of DNA that are associated with three key traits that make some varieties more drought tolerant than others: • Early seedling vigour allows for rapid canopy formation. The canopy shades the soil, helping minimize evaporation of what generally is adequate spring moisture in most regions of the Prairies.

• High transpiration efficiency is a plant’s ability to produce the most amount of biomass with the least amount of water during the hot and dry period of June and early July.

• Stem carbohydrate storage is a plant’s ability to transfer reserve sugar from its stems to developing heads during the grain filling phase. This often occurs under high temperatures and decreased soil moisture.

The goal is to breed all three traits into new lines to create drought tolerant barley. It is a different tack than that being taken by seed companies, which are spending money to develop genetically modified drought tolerant corn and soybeans.

Canadian barley yields have remained static over the past two decades. | file photo “The one we are doing here is not genetically modified, so it makes it kind of unique,” Anyia said.

He said the barley industry doesn’t want GM crops because it could disrupt markets.

Anyia and his team are now identifying quantitative trait loci and genetic markers that will help breeders quickly select among their advanced screening material for those traits.

Similar work led to a drought tolerant line of Australian wheat called Drysdale, which delivers 10 to 20 percent more grain than competing varieties during dry years.

Anyia’s team hadn’t analyzed the results from the barley field trials when this story was written, but visual inspection indicated the lines chosen for their high water use efficiency traits showed early vigorous growth with no visible symptoms of drought stress during the hot and dry summer of 2009.

The savings could be significant for prairie farmers if Anyia’s work results in drought tolerant barley varieties that exhibit a similar yield boost as Drysdale.

Anyia said yields of all major crops in Alberta fell by almost 50 percent during the drought of 2002. Losses to barley were estimated at $300 million. A 20 percent yield boost would have cut those losses by $60 million.

“That is lots of money.”

Anyia said his team will turn its attention to another valuable prairie crop if the barley project is successful.

“Once we conclude the barley work, canola is the one we’ll be looking at next.”

The unpredictability of rainfall on the Prairies is one reason researchers are working on drought tolerant crop varieties. | file photo

48

december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

new dam ideas

Little action on Meridian, Highgate proposals Proposals for two dam projects have faded from the public eye | Attention was paid in the past to the possibility of building Meridian Dam on the South Saskatchewan River and Highgate Dam on the North Saskatchewan River

By Adrian Ewins

Saskatoon newsroom

The proponents of these projects will never give up. It’s people who want to gain control of water as a commodity so they can sell it and make money.

Sandra Finley Saskatchewan Environmental society

alta.

Sask.

16

Highgate proposal Meridian proposal

medicine hat

SASKATOON

1

Swift Current

»»The map shows proposed sites for Meridian & Highgate dams

H

undreds of dams divert and block prairie rivers.

Information on websites run by provincial government water agencies indicates there are 45 dams in Saskatchewan owned and operated by the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority, 200 in Alberta owned by the provincial government, along with 1,200 privately owned, and 15 hydroelectric dams in Manitoba, with more in the planning stages.

Is that enough? There is no consensus on that question.

It’s a less high profile issue than it was a few years ago, but the question of whether the Prairies in general, and Saskatchewan in particular, need more dams still generates strong opinion and debate.

Charles (Red) Williams, professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan and a prominent commentator on agricultural issues, thinks water management through the construction of dams and reservoirs is crucial to economic development on the Prairies and in his home province.

“We have lots of water going by in our prairie rivers but it all comes by in a spring peak,” he said.

“It makes sense to me to store that water that passes in the spring and

feed it out gradually during the growing season and direct water southward to supply the water deficient areas.”

Williams was part of the agricultural think-tank Agrivision, which in 2006 i ssu e d a re p o r t t hat p ro p o s e d “drought-proofing” the Prairies by managing water in the North and South Saskatchewan rivers.

It in turn was a follow-up to a 1972 report by the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, which discussed building 24 dams on the Prairies.

Sandra Finley of the Saskatchewan Environmental Society and a former leader of the province’s Green Party, rejects the argument that dams and reservoirs will lead to increased irrigation and crop production and attract investment in the form of increased value-added processing.

She said water diversion projects are designed to put money into developers’ pockets at the expense of the environment and ordinary citizens and taxpayers.

“The proponents of these projects will never give up,” she said.

“It’s people who want to gain control of water as a commodity so they can sell it and make money.”

Finley said irrigation development is determined more by the economics of crop production than by the availability of a water source.

There are no active proposals to build major dams in the province, other than a possible hydro-electric dam on the Saskatchewan River northeast of Prince Albert, a project that has been pursued by the James Smith Cree Nation since 2001.

However, during the past decade two proposed projects received lots of public attention.

One was the Meridian dam, which was to be built on the South Saskatchewan River just inside the Alberta border.

It would have created a massive reservoir, flooding the river valley upstream to Medicine Hat. The governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan conducted a feasibility study into the project and in 2002 agreed the cost estimates of the project outweighed potential benefits.

The other project is the Highgate dam, proposed for the North Saskatchewan River northwest of North Battleford.

The idea was first broached in the early 1970s, eventually resulting in a feasibility study that was completed and made public in the winter of 2008.

Proponents called for a series of four dams and reservoirs, starting with Highgate and continuing along the North Saskatchewan to the confluence of the North and South Saskatchewan rivers near Prince Albert, Sask.

Exactly where the Highgate proposal stands is a mystery, to its supporters and detractors.

Steve McKechnie is a retired farmer and former chair of the North Sask River water resource committee, which was set up to review the proposal and update the study done in the early 1970s.

“We updated the study and fulfilled our mandate and we’re really in a quandary now as to what we do next and how do you make anything happen out of this,” he said.

If the project is to go further, it will need some level of government to declare its support and push it forward.

“We’ve got no one standing in line and saying, ‘this is a good idea and I’m going to take this to cabinet or whatever and I’m going to push this through,’ ” he said.

The estimated cost of the Highgate dam was $126 million in 1971.

Today, it would likely be in the billions, McKechnie said.

The Highgate project has been pushed out of the public consciousness to a large degree by the debate over building a nuclear power plant in the same area, he added.

Last week, the Saskatchewan government abandoned any immediate plans for nuclear development in the region.

A 2006 report from Agrivision proposed “drought-proofing” the Prairies by managing water in the North and South Saskatchewan rivers. |

$1 billion

The estimated amount it would cost to construct the Highgate dam today |

file photo

source: former water resource official

the water issue

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

49

American cities beef up conservation efforts

Fast-growing Western U.S. cities face water crisis Reuters LAS VEGAS, Nevada

D

esert golf course superintendent Bill Rohret is doing something that 20 years ago would have seemed unthinkable.

He’s ripping up bright, green turf by the acre and replacing it with rocks.

Back then “they came in with bulldozers and dynamite, and they took the desert and turned it into a green oasis,” Rohret said, surveying a rocklined fairway within sight of the Las Vegas strip.

“Now ... it’s just the reverse.”

The Angel Park Golf Club has torn out 65 acres of off-course grass in the last five years, and 15 more will be removed by 2011 to help conserve local supplies of one of the most precious commodities in the parched American West — fresh water.

But Rohret’s efforts have their limits. His course and many others still take pride in maintaining pristine greens and fairways and sparkling fountains, requiring huge daily expenditures of water.

Aiming to cut per capita use by about a third in the face of drought and global warming, water authorities in the United States’ driest major city are paying water customers $1.50 per sq. foot to replace grass lawns with desert landscaping.

Built in the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas is one of many Western U.S. cities scrambling to slash water consumption, increase recycling and squeeze more from underground aquifers as long-reliable surface water sources dry up.

From handing out fines for leaky sprinklers to charging homeowners high rates for high use, water officials in the U.S. West are chasing down squandered water one gallon at a time.

Nowhere is the sense of crisis more visible than on the outskirts of Las Vegas at Lake Mead, the nation’s largest man-made reservoir, fed by the once-mighty Colorado River. A principal source of water for Nevada and Southern California, the lake has dipped to below half its capacity, leaving an ominous, white “bathtub ring” that grows thicker each year.

“We are in the eye of the storm,” said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

“As the realities of climate change began to manifest themselves at the beginning of this century, we had to get serious about it.”

For now, policy makers have emphasized the need to curb water use rather than urban growth, though the U.S. recession has put the brakes on commercial and housing development that otherwise would be at odds with the West’s water scarcity.

Warm, dry weather has long made the American West attractive to visitors, but piped-in water has created artificial oases, luring millions to settle in the region. Las Vegas ranks as one of the fastest-growing American cities.

But scientists say climate change is shriveling the snow pack in California’s Sierra Nevada, the state’s main source of fresh surface water, and in the Rocky Mountains that feed the

the world’s water supply

Hotels not asleep

»»Major Las Vegas hotel-casinos such

»»There are 1.4 billion cubic

»»Those measures are starting to pay

»»North Americans have access to

kilometres of water on the planet but almost 97 percent is salt water.

Most freshwater is locked up in glaciers or deep underground, leaving only a fraction available for human consumption or use.

as the MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment have adopted “green” building codes, including modifications designed to slash water use by 40 percent. off, with daily water use down 15 percent per person in the greater Las Vegas area.

Colorado River, whose waters sustain seven states.

Further pressure from farming and urban sprawl is straining underground aquifers, placing a question mark over the future growth of cities from Los Angeles to Tucson, Arizona.

“There is going to have to be a big adjustment in the American Southwest and in California as we come to grips with limits in this century — not just limited water, but also limited water supply,” said James Powell, author of the book Dead Pool, which explores the challenges facing planners in the West.

Reactions among local water authorities differ.

In Phoenix, the United States’ fifthlargest city, authorities say sustainable groundwater and ample surface water allocations from the Colorado and Salt rivers meet the city’s needs, even factoring in growth through a moderate drought. The city is also recycling waste water and plans to pump some back into the aquifer as a cushion.

Tucson will require new businesses to start collecting rainwater for irrigation in 2010.

California requires developers of large housing projects to prove they have sufficient water.

In Las Vegas, front-yard turf has been banned for new homes.

T h e S o u t h e r n Ne v a d a Wa t e r Authority also has hired “water cops” to fan out into the suburbs to identify violations of mandatory lawn irrigation schedules and wasteful run-off.

Repeat offenders get $80 fines.

In a wake-up call to California, state water officials recently announced that a prolonged drought was forcing them to cut Sierra-fed supplies pumped to cities and irrigation districts by 85 percent.

That has led many California cities, topped by Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest, to plan for rationing, including price-enforced household conservation and tough new lawn watering restrictions.

“The level of severity of this drought is something we haven’t seen since the early 1970s,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in unveiling his city’s drought plan.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarz­ enegger last month called on the state’s urban users to cut water consumption 20 percent or face mandatory conservation measures.

The California drought, now in its third year, is the state’s costliest ever.

Complicating matters are sharp restrictions on how much water can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in northern California, which furnishes much of the state’s irrigation and drinking supplies.

Moreover, the severe dry spell is

more than 6,000 cubic metres per person per year stored in reservoirs, while the poorest African countries have less than 700. Ethiopia has less than 50.

Wealthy but water-scarce countries such as Saudi Arabia can afford expensive desalination projects, but poor ones cannot.

»»Providing clean drinking water

Cities like Los Angeles are considering recycling purified sewer water for drinking supplies. | public-domain-photos.com leaving the state more vulnerable to wildfires, which last year consumed some several Los Angeles suburbs.

The previous year, fires forced a record 500,000 Southern Californians to flee their homes.

Conservation will buy time, experts say. But bolder steps are needed in anticipation of longer droughts and renewed urban expansion that is likely to occur when the recession ends.

Cities like Los Angeles and San Diego are revisiting an idea once abandoned in the face of staunch political opposition — recycling purified sewer water for drinking supplies.

Disparaged by critics as “toilet-to-tap,” such recycling plans have gained new currency from the success of the yearold Groundwater Replenishing System in Orange County near Los Angeles.

That system distills wastewater through advanced treatment and pumps it into the ground to recharge the area’s aquifer, providing drinking supplies for 500,000 people, including residents of Anaheim, home of Disneyland.

Water specialists also see a need to capture more rainfall runoff that otherwise flows out to sea and to change the operation of dams originally built for flood control to maximize their storage capacity.

The situation in Las Vegas has grown so dire that water authorities plan to build a $3 billion pipeline to tap aquifers lying beneath a remote part of Nevada, a project critics call the greatest urban water grab in decades.

Southern Nevada water czar Mulroy says a broader national conversation about water is needed, but it’s not happening.

“We are talking about investing in public infrastructure, we are looking at building projects, but I get frustrated because we are doing it in complete denial of the climate change conditions that we are facing,” she said.

“We are not looking at where the oceans are rising, where the floods are going to occur, where things are going to go from that normal state to something extraordinary.”

to the poor is one of the biggest development challenges. Since 1990, 1.6 billion people have gained access to safe water. But nearly a billion people still lack safe drinking water.

Source: United Nations

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the water issue

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51

scientific basis or simple luck?

dowser proves dedicated to finding water when asked Coat hanger points the way | The practice of dowsing, also known as water witching, remains quietly controversial. There are varying views on how dowsing succeeds in locating water. Some say it’s long on lore and short on proof

By Ed White Winnipeg bureau

S

The absence of a rational explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

Skeptic’s dictionary

ome think he’s a flake.

Some say he’s a fraud.

Some call him a witch.

Henry V. Thiessen of Morden, Man., doesn’t know what he is. To him, all that matters is that he believes he has the power to find ground water with a straightened coat hanger.

And that’s good enough.

“As long as it works, I don’t care,” said the cheery 75-year old, as he demonstrated the method in his garage.

“See, it wants me back there,” he said as the wire slowed its wild gyrations above what Thiessen said is a watercourse deep beneath the concrete.

Thiessen, who operates a homebased business called Compass Global Watersearch, said his coat hanger reveals where the water is and its depth.

Dowsing is an art that is long in lore and short in scientific proof. The practice goes back centuries and continues to this day.

It also continues to be scorned by rationalists who feel it is either fraudulent or unintentionally successful.

A good summary of skeptical views can be found on the Skeptic’s Dictionary website at www.skepdic. com/comments/dowsecom.html.

Skeptics have several arguments: Dowsing is suspect because water can be found in many places with no supernatural abilities required.

Dowsers may have good instincts for spotting above-ground signs of ground water and then falsely attribute it to the actions of implements they are holding.

Just because it isn’t easy to explain why something seems to work doesn’t mean it does work.

“The absence of a rational explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” says a comment in the Skeptic’s Dictionary.

“On the other hand, there may be some things which we cannot explain rationally. It doesn’t follow from either of these premises that there is always a paranormal explanation, if only we were clever enough to grasp it.”

However, plenty of pro-dowsing views speak back against this widespread skepticism, such as those expressed on the Dowsers Canada website at www.dowsers.ca.

“In dowsing, we train our nervousmuscular system to be like wires that connect the intuitive part of our mind-brain team to a tool that indicates the nature of the message, to a dowsing tool that signals yes or no,” says the dowsing explanation.

Some dowsers use two metal bars, others use a single loop of metal and others use branches and wooden implements.

Thiessen uses a straightened-out coat hanger, mainly because it’s light, cheap and readily available.

Unlike dowsing enthusiasts who are keen to explain how dowsing works and unlike skeptics who are dismissive because of the lack of a rational explanation, Thiessen doesn’t care what makes the wire jig up and down in his hands when he’s over water or why it will jig up and down once for every foot of depth of the water below.

Thiessen’s art is a strange one.

When watching him find an alleged watercourse, it’s hard to tell if he’s purposely swinging the coat hanger up and down, if he’s unconsciously moving the wire and doesn’t realize it or if he’s having trouble holding his hands still because of the power of the dowsing jiggery.

Thiessen said he dowses mostly for fun and to help people, but he does charge $45 for his services and he does have conditions.

“You’ve got to pick me up,” he said.

“I won’t get out of the truck until they pay me.”

Thiessen has practised his water witching for 30 years, at times outraging conservative Christians who see his dowsing as a worthless pagan practice at best and sorcery at worst.

However, he said he is a churchgoing Christian and doesn’t claim to have magical powers, just an ability that’s hard to explain.

He’s less charitable with the skeptics who say he’s deluded or a charlatan.

“I just think they haven’t got their brain quite straight,” Thiessen said.

dowsing 101 Dowsing , also known as water witching, is the action performed by a dowser using a device to locate underground water, hidden metal, buried treasure, oil, lost persons or golf balls.

Since dowsing is not based upon scientific or empirical laws or forces of nature, it should be considered a type of divination and an example of “magical thinking.”

Dowsing equipment can be called: dowsing rod

»» »»dowsing stick »»doodlebug (when used to locate oil) »»divining rod

Henry V. Thiessen has a home-based dowsing business in Manitoba. He doesn’t pretend to be able to explain how or why dowsing works but he has had considerable success in finding water. | Ed White photo

5 millimetres

amount of water cereal crops need daily when it’s hotter than 25 C |

source: Alberta Agriculture

Map dowsers use a dowsing device, usually a pendulum, over maps to locate oil, minerals, persons or water.

However, the prototype of a dowser is the field dowser who walks around an area using a forked stick to locate underground water. When above water, the rod points downward. Some dowsers use two rods that cross when above water.

Theories as to what causes the rods to move: electromagnetic or other subtle geological forces

In the 16th century, Agricola described mining dowsers using a forked twig to find metals. He didn’t think much of the practice. As a miner, he wrote: “… should not make us of an enchanted twig, because if he is prudent and skilled in the natural signs, he understands that a forked stick is of no use to him, for ... there are natural indications of the veins which he can see for himself without the help of twigs.” (Quoted in Zusne and Jones 1989: 106) Despite this sage advice, dowsers continue to dowse, claiming that they have a special power and that what they are dowsing for emanates energy, rays, radiations, vibrations and the like.

Source: The Skeptic’s Dictionary

Alternate dowsing definitions Engineer Raymond C. Willey, one of the founders of the American Society of Dowsers in 1961, in the 1970 book Modern Dowsing gives this definition: “Dowsing is the exercise of a human faculty, which allows one to obtain information in a manner beyond the scope and power of the standard human physical senses of sight, sound, touch, etc.”

»»

»» »»suggestion from others »»Author Chris Bird says that “to »»geophysical observations dowse” is to search for anything. »»ESP and other paranormal explanaThis is generally done with the aid tions

Most skeptics accept the explanation of William Carpenter (1852). The rod moves due to involuntary motor behaviour, which Carpenter dubbed ideomotor action.

of a hand-held instrument, such as a forked stick, a pendulum bob on a string, L-shaped metal rods or a wooden or metal wand.

Source. American Society of Dowsers

TOP: A sensitive pair of hands on a straightened coat hanger are required for successful dowsing, according to Thiessen’s method. | Ed White photo ABOVE: The successful discovery of a well by dowsing can eliminate the need for farmers to haul water for home use, saving time and inconvenience. | Ed White photo

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the water issue

the water issue

234 million remaining acres of prairie wetlands |

source: University of Saskatchewan

In some areas of the Prairies, people are finding they have to drill increasingly deeper to find water. Ryan Penner of New Norway, Alta., and his son, Joshua, are filling water from the Camrose County well in this photo taken in September. | FILE PHOTO

Repairing the prairie moisture cycle

Whatcha gonna do when the well runs dry?

Is zero till a water-sucking villain? | Lyrics to the old Fats Domino song are taking on a new meaning

By Ron Lyseng Winnipeg bureau

What are we going to do when our new well runs dry?

Dig a deeper one.

What are we going to do when that one runs dry?

Drill deeper again and ask why the wells keep running dry.

T

WHERE’S IT GOING? Water use in your house and around the farm • Forty percent of water use in Canadian homes is toilets.

• 35 percent is baths and showers.

• 20 percent is laundry and dishes.

• Five percent is drinking and cooking.

— Source: Agriculture Canada

• Nearly all of the water used to produce livestock in Canada is provided by ground water.

— Source: Environment Canada

he prairie moisture cycle has been disrupted. Nobody disputes that point. But how badly is it disrupted and can it be fixed? Nobody knows, says John Pomeroy, director at the Centre for Hydrology at the University of Saskatchewan.

Prairie people know they have to go progressively deeper with their wells and as they do, the water is often lower quality than their previous well.

“Most shallow surface aquifers once had very good quality water, but very little storage capacity,” said Pomeroy. Small storage limits the ability to recharge and available water is used quickly.

“These shallow aquifers are connected to the surface so they experience the same rain and drought

cycles we experience. They get their water from the moisture cycle, which goes up and down, wet and dry.”

As the Prairies required more water for irrigation, livestock and municipal purposes, shallow wells ran dry and were abandoned in favour of deeper wells.

“There’s much more water underground than on the surface or in the shallow aquifers. Nobody knows how much,” Pomeroy said. “But the flow rate in the deep aquifers is extremely slow and it’s mostly very poor quality.

“There are a few areas with high quality deep water, such as the Assiniboine Delta Aquifer, but most deep water isn’t suitable for agriculture or people.

“A lot of that water was laid down in pre-glacial times, so it’s old. The older it is, the more dissolved solids it has. It can’t be used for anything.”

Pomeroy said it’s easy to see how shallow wells and their high quality water were pumped dry. The water was needed. But other land management factors affect the situation.

Recharging ground water on the Prairies is different from other places, Pomeroy said. Because these shallow aquifers are small, they recharge

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

quickly from potholes and sloughs.

Conversely, they also respond quickly to drought or having their recharge sources cut off.

“Recharge absolutely depends on sloughs and potholes. You need water standing for a period of time to force it through that thick till layer.

“Sloughs are mainly filled by snowmelt runoff. Snow is the primary source of water for our prairie water tables. Summer rainfall that runs into the sloughs generally evaporates before it has a chance to recharge the water table.”

Pomeroy said a cool rainy summer will recharge some of the water tables but with 70 percent of prairie sloughs and potholes now drained, every remaining acre of surface water is vital.

“Every time we drain another pothole, we lose one more source of snowmelt water for our shallow aquifers and recharge for those shallower wells.

“There’s another problem with the remaining sloughs.We’re not putting as much snowmelt runoff into those sloughs as we did 20 years ago.”

Farmers and researchers agree that water is the limiting factor on all types of agricultural production on

the Prairies. With a limited amount of water most years, the industry has geared itself to maximum use of that precious resource.

Zero till villain Pomeroy said zero till and continuous cropping are robbing the prairies of valuable snowmelt runoff, resulting in groundwater depletion that may be as critical as the 70 percent pothole drainage factor.

“Standing stubble keeps snow out on the fields. It prevents snow from blowing into the sloughs like it once did. That snow used to fill the sloughs. When it melted, the slough was full of water to replenish the aquifers.”

The accompanying factor on upland areas is that zero till allows snowmelt and rainfall to percolate into the soil, resulting in better crops.

However, putting moisture to use where it falls means less runoff.

Many farmers say they now farm right through sloughs and potholes that they couldn’t even drive close to before adopting zero till.

“Improvements in farming practices in the past 20 years have given us better yields but these practices

Zero till practices might be perfect for conserving moisture in the field, but they also reduce water runoff to sloughs, which help replenish underground acquifers. Above right photo, birds enjoy the sloughs at Meacham, Sask. | FILE PHOTOs have a negative impact on our groundwater,” said Pomeroy “We’ve designed these highly efficient systems for growing crops and making better use of limited moisture but we’ve left nothing for nature or ground water recharge.

“We don’t know how bad the situation is and we don’t know what constitutes sustainable recharge of groundwater on the Prairies. We’re just beginning to do that research now.”

Agricultural use Pomeroy said that under the auspices of the Drought Research Initiative, studies have begun to give scientists a better grasp of how much water is used by agriculture and how much is left over as a recharge source.

They have developed programs to model the water levels in a slough and determine how much goes into replenishing ground water.

“We need to quantify how much runs off and how much is lost to the atmosphere by evapotranspiration through plant growth. So far, the models have only been tested in a few areas of Saskatchewan.”

Average annual precipitation prai-

rie-wide is typically about 350 mm.

That varies from year to year and area to area. The number is higher in western Alberta and eastern Manitoba, lower in the Palliser Triangle.

“Typical averages don’t mean much on the Prairies because we so often experience extremes at the high end or low end. But we do know that roughly one-third the annual precipitation comes as snowfall,” said Pomeroy.

“If you leave standing stubble of only 35 mm, you can generally catch the full 100 mm of snow. That’s if it decides to snow at all that winter.

“Leaving higher stubble may catch the snow that blows off your neighbour’s fields, although when it blows, about half tends to sublimate or evaporate, so much of that moisture is lost. It never makes it to a drift or another field.”

Pomeroy said during the driest part of a drought, soil moisture storage is only 100 mm. After a wet fall, snowy winter and wet spring sequence, there can be up to 750 mm of water equivalent.

Evapotranspiration from crops is about four mm per day. Evaporation from small water bodies is about six mm per day.

Then consider how slowly water in a prairie pothole or slough percolates into the aquifer. The recharge rate varies from non-measurable up to 0.2 mm per day.

Only a few wetlands with sandy bottoms allow water to enter the aquifer faster than 0.2 mm per day.

That fact might change attitudes toward trying to drain the remaining 234 million acres of prairie wetlands.

If high quality water is important, we may even think about restoring some of those drained sloughs and potholes.

We’ve designed these highly efficient systems for growing crops and making better use of limited moisture but we’ve left nothing for nature or ground water recharge.

John Pomeroy Centre for hydrology

53

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is water a commodity?

water definition at core of debate Export trade rules | There has never been a North American Free Trade Agreement case involving water as a commodity, but before a trade dispute panel is required, experts recommend clarification of the rules

Maude barlow council of canadians

The debate rages over whether the North American Free Trade Agreement allows the sale of water from bodies such as the Peace River. |

By Barry Wilson Ottawa bureau

O

ttawa trade lawyer and water rules expert Stephen Shrybman says the 20-year debate over whether water is covered by the North American Free Trade Agreement is irrelevant.

Of course water is governed by NAFTA rules, he says.

“The fact is that water is an investment and a service category that is captured by the NAFTA,” said Shrybman, from the law firm Sack Goldblatt Mitchell.

As an example, the bankrupt paper company AbitibiBowater is using Chapter 11 of NAFTA to sue the Newfoundland government over its decision to take back the company’s licence to have access to provincial water once it closed its plant, claiming loss of investment returns.

“There is no argument that a NAFTA panel has jurisdiction to hear this case,” Shrybman said in an interview.

“Water is part of the agreement.”

Less certain, as NAFTA critics have complained since the first free trade deal was signed with the United States in 1989, is whether water will

The fact is that water is an investment and a service category that is captured by the NAFTA. Stephen Shrybman water rules expert

be considered a commodity that can be exported and that a thirsty U.S. economy will be able to demand access under national treatment provisions.

That is the core of the debate, said Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians chair and former United Nations special adviser on water.

“The American government is looking outside its borders for energy, so why wouldn’t they look for water too as their supplies dw indle and demand increases?

“Once one province decides its water is a commodity that can be exported, then NAFTA says it would no longer be Canadian water but North American water, like our energy.”

Shrybman said the jury still is out

about whether water would be considered a commodity subject to export trade rules. There has never been a NAFTA case on the issue.

“The simple answer is we don’t know if water would be considered a commodity, although it certainly is used as a commodity in business projects, in irrigation, in water bottles,” he said. “The only way the issue will be resolved is by a trade dispute panel.”

Before that happens, he said Canada should try to negotiate a deal with the U.S. to specifically exclude water from NAFTA. Barlow argues that the way to do that is to have government declare water a “national tr ust ” and a resource that is publicly owned, fairly apportioned and adequately conserved.

The Council of Canadians has targeted as dangerous proposals made to the Alberta government that provision of water within the province increasingly be open to private management and control.

“This would be setting the stage for a market model like that in Chile and Texas that would put allocation and distribution in the hands of private

1989

file photo

companies, open to foreign investment,” said Barlow. “This would open the door.”

But like most issues on the water file, it is a complicated matter.

Water, as a resource, is a provincial jurisdiction. In some forms it already is priced and privately controlled in the market.

Montreal Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggie, chair of the party water caucus, has been working for four years on a water policy that the party expects to highlight in the next election.

“As a civil society, we are just beginning to explore the issues of water and frankly it is one of the most complex policy areas I’ve ever come across,” he said in an interview.

“It is difficult to capture this in a few paragraphs or a short policy statement. There are so many issues, which I think explains why we have never had a national water policy.”

He has proposed a private member’s bill that would stop diversion of water between water basins and by extension between Canada and the United States but he acknowledged that issue is just the tip of the water policy iceberg.

was the year the north American free trade agreement was signed

the water issue

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

55

Global water crisis looms

How to invest in water: a tricky business Look beyond utilities to unregulated suppliers | Consider grain and other commodities tied to water, says fund manager Reuters San Francisco, California

A

global water crisis is looming, but the path to profits is a muddy mess of regulated industries, giant companies with small water operations, and start-up technologies.

For Alex Miles, who once ran a water hedge fund and now manages $350 million at Kingfisher Capital, successful investing in water means going beyond it. Commodities, power and efficiency technology are all ways to make a portfolio splash.

Water scarcity has become a global issue as climate change alters water availability, population growth raises demand, and contamination threatens clean supplies.

But what seems to be an obvious investment opportunity has challenges, including the belief that water is a public good, not a profit source.

“If water were not viewed as a human right, it would be a great investment,” said Miles, who believes water shortages, like gravity, are inescapable.

Miles ran Aqueduct, one of the first hedge funds in water from 2006 to 2009. His Kingfisher’s Value Opportunity flagship fund, which has water as one focus, has outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by 3.65 percentage points annually between its inception at the end of 2004 and the end of June 2009, he said.

In an interview at a recent Green Power conference in San Francisco, he explained how to invest in ways that could help alleviate crisis as well as profit from its effects, such as higher grain prices.

“The fault of the investment community is that they have looked at water too narrowly,” he said.

Plug into the smart grid Water investment can be made in primary industries, like utilities that produce, treat and transport water.

But it should also include related industries, such as smart grid and pollution management that could increase efficiency of water use, and products tied to water, like food.

Heavy regulation limits returns at publicly traded water utilities, while the biggest players in water technology, such as General Electric and Siemens AG, are even bigger in other areas, diluting their value for someone wanting a targeted water investment.

One pure play would be small-cap Energy Recovery Inc, which makes equipment that cuts energy use at desalination plants and other enterprises that clean water.

Secondary industries that are closely related to water offer other opportunities. Moving and heating water is a major energy draw, while water is crucial to producing energy, from mining to natural gas extraction to cooling power plants.

Bets on water include meter companies focused on water and building an electricity smart grid, Miles said. He cited companies such as Badger Meter, Itron Inc. and Ener-

NOC, a demand response company that sells contracts to cut electricity demand when needed by power companies.

Miles declined to recommend any specific investment, but argued that many of the water companies had been chewed up by credit fears that had nothing to do with the underlying demand for their wares and services.

“Investors in water have to take a

long-term view,” he said. “A lot of these stocks have struggled because of the global credit crisis rather than because of their business models.”

Follow the carbon footprint Water use is often energy-intensive, and thus carbon-intensive, because many industries endanger water. So increased focus on carbon and water

go hand in hand, he said.

“Carbon prices should go up, reflective of (the) water crisis,” he said.

Investing in the Climate Exchange Plc, a publicly traded company that runs exchanges for greenhouse gases, could be seen as water investment, he said.

Miles expects the crisis to intensify, despite technology improvements.

The best strategy for “water crisis”

investors is grain and other soft commodities, he said.

Water prices will rise because needs will be so dire and governments such as the United States will have more pressing priorities. But regulation and fragmented markets mean the water price rise will lag price increases in products that use water, like food.

“I want to be long agricultural commodities,” he said.

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the water issue

the water issue

small but mighty

We are proving that grassroots conservation is effective.

By Ron Lyseng Winnipeg bureau

Peak flow reduction benefits of a small dam network versus one large dam in the South Tobacco Creek Watershed.

Multiple One

small dams

dam

Maximum reductions 19% in peak flow (spring) Maximum reductions 25% in peak flow (summer) Total Storage (acre feet) 561.6

27%

Source: South Tobacco Creek Watershed

38% 892

P

otholes have been a major water issue since farmers first arrived on the Prairies in the mid-1800s.

Draining potholes was inevitable if the Prairies were to become productive and support a growing population. Seventy percent of potholes have since disappeared, according to the 2008 Canadian Wetland Inventory.

Satellite imagery shows that the remaining prairie wetlands cover about 234 million acres, one-quarter of all the world’s remaining wetlands.

Environmentalists, along with the mainstream public, are now putting more pressure on politicians to preserve these wetlands.

However, there is a compromise between drainage and pure pothole preservation — low-level water retention dams that would hold water until mid-summer.

Farmers developed it during the Dirty Thirties, in conjunction with new government agencies such as the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration and conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited.

Today, the plan may be key to satisfying farmers and the public in the debate over how to manage remaining wetland acres.

Low-level water retention dams are inexpensive control structures that hold water during spring and early summer.

Water recharges local water tables and provides moisture for early summer showers.

Ground water recharge becomes much more important when remembering that more water exists underground than on the surface. Pothole drainage removes surface water in the spring before it can infiltrate the soil.

Drainage also affects rainfall for crop growth. According to Canada Water Facts, once a single molecule of water evaporates from a pond, it typically remains in the air for 10 days before returning to the soil in the form of rain.

Maintaining prairie potholes ensures evaporation and a better supply of air-borne moisture for those necessary showers.

Cleaner water is an often overlooked benefit of wetlands. A natural wetland filters sediments and pollutants before the water flows downstream to the next user. The settling

Draining potholes and sloughs increases agricultural production, but it can also deplete the water table and limit through underground aquifers. | FILE PHOTO effect removes particles, while vegetation and biological action removes organic, livestock and agriculture chemical pollutants from adjacent fields.

A managed wetland provides water for spraying, livestock, irrigation and high volume forage crops around the pond periphery.

By mid-summer, the remaining water can be released so hay crops can be harvested before freeze up.

Flood prevention is another significant benefit of low-level dams.

Bill Turner of the Deerwood Soil and Water Management Association based in Miami, Man., said a drained

pothole is nothing more than a big ditch.

He said water flows out as quickly as it flows in when a drainage ditch is designed and executed properly, which is not necessarily a good thing.

It may serve the short-term goal of drying land for spring seeding, but it can trigger immediate negative effects. Water quickly finds its way down the watershed, where it causes flooding.

On the other hand, upstream water retained in small potholes alleviates downstream flooding by serving as a sponge. When the water is finally

released in mid-summer, downstream water bodies can usually accept the extra water without risk of flood.

Sometimes the best engineers are found in nature, as farmers near Miami, Man., discovered when they enlisted beaver intelligence to help solve their water management problems along the South Tobacco Creek.

This is one of the best documented and perhaps best managed watershed projects in Western Canada.

Biological, hydrological and agronomic research has continued since the first dams were built in the 1980s.

To make a small reservoir, a producer constructs concrete collars on either side of the creek.

1

Les McEwan

Retention dams part of the answer | For areas of Manitoba, a system of small, adjustable dams have proven to be successful in maximizing agricultural water use and minimizing erosion due to excess water flow and runoff Flow Benefits

water retention systems

pothole drainage: managing wetlands

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

the amount of water available Turner said the Manitoba government has studied the impact of small dams in preventing nutrient runoff from farm fields.

“From what we’ve seen so far, a very high percentage of the silt people get downstream doesn’t come from farmers’ fields,” he said.

“The dams seem to prevent field runoff from finding its way downstream. It looks like most of the silt people get downstream comes from stream bank erosion.”

The project began after severe flooding in 1979 prompted farmers to work together to figure out how to reduce flooding and soil erosion. The

Deerwood association president

result was the Deerwood Soil and Water Management Association.

Working with hydrological engineers, the association concluded that the beavers’ design of small headwater storage dams might solve their problem more effectively than digging bigger and better drainage ditches.

They studied how beaver dams held water during spring runoff and major rainfalls. The association then built 52 dams on private farmland on South and North Tobacco Creeks and Graham Creek.

Funding came from provincial and municipal governments, Ducks Unlimited and the PFRA, now Agriculture Canada’s agri-environment services branch. Landowners were responsible for dam maintenance on their property.

“We are proving that grassroots conservation is effective,” Deerwood association president Les McEwan said during the dam building period.

“Our soil and water management programs are paying off for farmers, local governments and for the people living further downstream.”

The 350 sq. mile watershed drained by the creek runs down the escarpment from the high rolling hills of western Manitoba to the flat bottom of the Red River Valley.

Engineers recommended three types of dams, depending on a landowner’s position within the watershed.

• Flood control dry dams fill in the spring or in a heavy rainfall and then gradually release water until the reservoir is empty.

• Back-flood dams retain shallow water over a large acreage on cropped land, forage or pasture land for at least two weeks. All water is then released until the field is dry. The water often flows down to another back-flood field.

• Multi-purpose dams are the same as flood control dams, but half the storage capacity is retained for summer water use.

The average cost per dam was $9,774, according to the Deerwood association.

Engineers working with Deerwood estimate the average storage capacity per dam is 21.6 acre feet of water and the overall dam network reduces peak spring melt flow by an average of 19 percent, enough to significantly reduce downstream flooding.

Some dams, such as the one at the Steppler Site, have reduced the peak

10 days

runoff flow by 90 percent.

Annual maintenance costs for roads, bridges and ditches have also dropped. The two rural municipalities in the watershed report annual savings of $25,000 each since the dams were built.

In 1995, the International Coalition for Land and Stewardship in the Red River Basin analyzed the economics of the small dam network on South Tobacco Creek.

It concluded that a proposed single large dam on South Tobacco Creek would have cost three times as much as the 26 small dams. The big dam would not have provided a better level of flood protection downstream in the drainage basin, nor would it have done anything to reduce erosion and improve water quality upstream, where the farmers are located.

The 3:1 cost ratio comparison of a single large dam versus a network of small dams is similar to what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers discovered after studying the impact of the 1993 flood in the Mississippi watershed.

It c o n c l u d e d t hat t h e h ig h e r upstream in a watershed the dams are built, the smaller and cheaper they become. Many small dams are more effective and provide more local benefits than a few big dams.

Studies following the 1993 flood also found that one small upstream retention dam might serve an immediate watershed ranging from 20 to 2,000 acres, while a single big dam may be required to contain the water from millions of acres.

It’s not a major disaster if one or two of these smaller dams break or overflow because of too much water.

Many more similar dams hold water upstream in the basin, each holding a noncrucial volume.

However, if all that water were to flow downstream into the lower basin, the runoff from millions of acres must be controlled with a small number of big dams rather than a big number of small dams.

In a year like 1993, when the entire watershed received above normal rainfall for an extended period of time, the system of dikes and levies could not handle the volume.

“We’ve toured a number of other conservation districts and we’ve heard from other parts of the Prairies,” Turner said.

“People are still using our basic model when they build low-level retention dams. And they’re building more of these dams every year.”

Partially loading the collars with ties will create a swampy reservoir.

2

3

The reservoir can be filled by loading the collars to the top with ties.

the length of time an evaporated water molecule remains in the air before rEturning to the ground as rainfall WP graphic by Michelle Houlden | Source: Ducks Unlimited Canada

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december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

the water issue

ground water still has mysteries

Yes, it’s in the ground. but no, it doesn’t

stay there

It is difficult to determine how much ground water there is and how much is used | Scientists believe some groundwater is recharged from lakes and sloughs

Camrose bureau

T

Alec Blyth alberta research council

here is a lot that scientists don’t know about ground water.

In Alberta, much of the ground water information that scientists rely on comes from the Alberta Research Council’s (ARC) mapping programs of the 1960s and 1970s.

“We really haven’t moved that far from the ’60s,” said Alec Blyth, a research hydrogeologist with the council’s Integrated Water Management Plan.

“We had a fantastic ground water branch. We were the envy of other provinces. They had a fantastic mapping program.”

Budget cuts, privatization and a decision to shuffle water mapping programs between government depar tments halte d the water research.

What may be a bigger problem is getting a clear picture of how much ground water is being used, said Cathy Main, program leader with the Integrated Water Management Plan.

“How much ground water do we have? We can’t answer how much and we can’t answer how much we use.”

She said scientists need to determine the amount of ground water, how much is being replenished and how much is being extracted for livestock, drinking, industry and energy.

“Until we do that, we’ll have a lot of trouble understanding the impact we have.”

The common solution to rural ground water problems is to build a pipeline from cities, lakes or dams to ensure good, safe drinking water, but Blyth said pipelines are only a “BandAid solution.”

Pipelines provide good, clean drinking water, but they don’t create a sustainable future for communities, he added.

With many southern Alberta rivers closed to new water licences and a perception that governments will start reducing the amount of water allocated to each licence, the ARC

It’s like a hose, but we don’t know where it’s coming in or how much is coming out.

Population growth and urbanization can lead to encroachment on rural and semi-rural areas.

The combination of increased hardened surfaces and increased ground water withdrawals may reduce the potential for ground water recharge and diminish the ability to sustain current streamflow rates in low-flow periods.

Key points from Sustainable Management of Ground water in Canada: Nearly 10 million Canadians depend on ground water to supply drinking water, and more than 80 percent of the country’s rural population relies on ground water for its entire water supply.

»»

»»Significant current and emerging stresses on

Canada’s ground water include population growth and urbanization, agricultural intensification, impacts related to hydrocarbon production and the growing impact of climate change.

Alec Blyth

»»There is limited information regarding the valuation

researcher

believes water resources should be treated not as a garden hose that can be turned on at any time but as a finite resource that should be nurtured and studied.

“We live in the Palliser Triangle.

When drought occurs, water flow on the rivers will be down,” Blyth said.

Agriculture is one of Alberta’s largest water users, using 45 percent of the province’s potable water.

About five percent of the arable farmland uses 43 percent of the total water.

A 270-page report by the Council of Canadian Academies found that nearly 30 percent of Canada’s population, or about 10 million people, depend on ground water for the drinking supply.

More than 80 percent of the rural population relies on ground water for its entire water supply.

Blyth said there is no clear picture of how ground water is recharged or the location of recharge areas on the Prairies.

Main said scientists believe deep recharge zones in Manitoba are from the Rocky Mountains, while other shallower ground water areas are recharged from local lakes, sloughs and streams.

“It’s like a hose, but we don’t know where it’s coming in or how much is coming out,” she said.

Don Jones, field co-ordinator with the Integrated Water Management Plan, said a big problem is the lack of meters measuring how much ground water is used from house wells, farms and towns.

“We don’t even know how much water is being used in rural areas,” he said.

Each farm, house and acreage

59

GROUND WATER STATISTICS

The graph shows a Langley, B.C. study of diminishing groundwater levels over a period of 40 years.

By Mary MacArthur

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

of water in Canada and no current information on valuation by users of ground water.

»»There is a critical lack of data on ground water

allocations, actual withdrawals of ground water and volumes discharged or reused. Ground water cannot be managed effectively without this data, and the agencies responsible should assign a high priority to their collection, says the ground water report.

See the full report at http://www.scienceadvice.ca/ documents/(2009-05-11)%20GW%20Report.pdf

Scientists believe shallow ground water areas are recharged from surface pumping from in this 2005 photo. | file photo

water bodies such as the one Jared Odland of Vauxhall, Alta.,was

probably doesn’t use much but they have a cumulative effect.

An expert panel expressed this concern when it published a report on the sustainable management of ground water in Canada.

The panel was unable to identify an accurate estimate of the volume of ground water in Canada and found it difficult to obtain data on ground water use.

“It is apparent that there is a critical lack of data on ground water allocations, including municipal, industrial and agricultural allocation, on actual withdrawals of groundwater and on volumes discharged or reused,” said the report, which was

coli form bacteria in excess of drinking water guidelines.

The report recommended that governments and municipalities adopt

published in May. “Ground water cannot be managed effectively, at any scale, without these data, and the agencies responsible should assign a high priority in securing it.”

The report said more information is also needed on ground water quality and fixing a price on the value of ground water.

It said no national programs exist for tracking how many private wells have water treatment systems.

According to various surveys, nitrates and bacteria are the most common well-water contaminants in Canada.

It’s estimated 20 to 40 percent of rural wells have nitrate concentrations or

ground water & The water cycle

»»All the water in the global water balance adds up to 1.4 billion km3. But some segments of the cycle move very slowly, particularly deep ground water and glaciers.

These are considered ‘stored water’ as their volumes are replaced over very long time frames.

»»Rainfall or snow melt produces runoff to wetlands,

streams and lakes. A fraction of this water penetrates into the ground, depending on soil type, moisture content, slope steepness and the presence of cracks or fractures in the ground.

»»Ground water represents the largest stock of fresh

water in the global water cycle, although it is estimated that somewhat less than half of this volume is fresh water, the rest being in deeper saline aquifers. Only about three percent of total ground water is active in the water cycle on an annual basis.

WP graphic by Shelley Wichmann | Source: The Sustainable Management

of Groundwater in Canada

surface and ground water quality measurement programs to assess the current and developing threats to ground water quality.

More than 80 percent of Canada’s rural population relies on ground water for its water supply. |

10 million canadians depend on ground water for drinking supplies

file photos

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december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

ethanol and water use

biofuel may have bad rap as water user Average water use in ethanol plants has declined in the past 10 years but it still takes 10 to 17 litres of water to produce one litre of ethanol, depending on the growing area of the source material

By Sean Pratt

People are getting criticized for things that nobody has cared about before.

Don O’Connor consultant

Saskatoon newsroom

B

iofuel production is having a profound impact on water demand, according to a United Nations report.

“Despite their potential to help reduce dependence on fossil energy, biofuels with current technology are likely to place a disproportionate amount of pressure on biodiversity and the environment,” says the UN’s World Water Development Report 3.

“The major problem is the need for large quantities of water and fertilizers to grow the crops. Between 1,000 and 4,000 litres of water are needed to produce a single litre of biofuel.”

Global energy demands are expected to grow by as much as 55 percent by 2030, putting further pressure on an already stressed resource.

The UN predicted that in 2030, 47 percent of world population will be living in areas of high water stress

because of climate change. Water scarcity will displace 24 million to 700 million people in arid and semiarid regions, it added.

Don O’Connor, president of (S&T)2 Consultants Inc., said the UN study is flawed because it incorporates rainfall into the estimates of water use.

“That water would be falling on the land whether you were growing corn or not,” said O’Connor, a mechanical engineer recognized as a strong advocate of the biofuel industry.

“That’s just bad science.”

He doesn’t think the ethanol industry, which has a history of taking it on the chin for its water consumption, should be under the microscope in a world where no government regulations govern such matters.

“People are getting criticized for things that nobody has cared about before,” he said.

O’Connor wondered why the same critics haven’t been as concerned about how much water the oil industry uses.

A U.S. Department of Energy lab has studied both industries and has concluded that all forms of fuel production are heavy users of water.

“Our analysis indicates that conservation measures to reduce consumptive water use are needed to achieve sustainable biofuel and gasoline production,” said a report released earlier this year by Argonne National Laboratory.

However, it is clear from the results that ethanol is the bigger culprit, at least with today’s technologies.

The study shows corn ethanol plants consume 10 to 324 litres of water to produce a litre of ethanol. By contrast, gasoline production uses 2.8 to 6.6 litres of water, depending on whether it is produced from U.S. crude, Saudi crude or Canadian oilsands.

The large range in corn ethanol’s water requirements depends on where the corn is produced. Some production areas are far more dependent on irrigation than others. The study did not account for the use of rainwater.

Biofuel plants such as Husky Ethanol in Minnedosa, Man., are big water users. |

file photo

Approximately 70 percent of U.S. corn and 68 percent of U.S. corn ethanol are produced in a region where seven to 14 litres of irrigation water is consumed per litre of ethanol produced.

Another three litres of water are consumed for every litre produced in the ethanol production process, which is a dramatic improvement over what it used to be in the early days of the industry.

Average water consumption in ethanol plants has declined from 6.8 litres per litre of ethanol to three litres per litre of ethanol in the past 10 years, the report said.

However, the end result is still 10 to 17 litres of water used to make one litre of corn ethanol in the key corn and ethanol production regions of the United States, far more than what the petroleum industry uses to make one litre of gasoline.

“That’s why we think cellulosic ethanol is more promising,” said report author May Wu. O’Connor said the wheat-based ethanol plants being built in Western Canada have the advantage of using grain from nonirrigated crops.

However, the production process uses a little more water because wheat produces more distillers grain, which needs to be dried. He estimated the use rate would be in range of four litres of water per litre of ethanol.

But each plant is different. Some produce wet distillers grain instead of dry, others use technology that condenses water vapour going out the stack and some are recycling cooling water blow-down. As a result, it is difficult to apply an industry average to individual plants.

O’Connor said one certainty is that ethanol plants have become more economical in their water use over time, a trend that will continue in what is still an emerging industry.

Researchers say cellulose ethanol, which uses perennial grasses, wood and agriculture residues, algae and municipal wastes, could greatly improve the industry’s track record, depending on what production process is used.

Argonne had to estimate water requirements based on pilot plant results because cellulose ethanol technology has not been commercialized.

Plants using a biochemical conversion process will use an average of 9.8 litres of water to produce one litre of ethanol, assumingthefeedstockwasnonirrigated switchgrass. Once the technology advances, water use should drop to 5.9 litres to one litre. In either case, the process will use more water than most of today’s gasoline producers.

However, when a thermochemical gasification process is used, water use drops to 1.9 litres, which is better than any gasoline production method.

O’Connor is skeptical about that number. He said the thermochemical process produces a lot of waste heat, which needs cooling water to eliminate.

“Anybody is fooling themselves if they think that they can take 1.9 (litres) to the bank,” he said.

the water issue

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

61

65 projects on the prairies

Effluent water proves useful for farm irrigation An ‘ick’ factor | Hesitation overcome when realistic water costs are considered

By Mary MacArthur Camrose bureau

R

ick Swenson doesn’t turn off his irrigation pivot when the wind blows and the temperature soars. He cranks it up and keeps the water pumping.

He’s irrigating his crops and acting as a disposal system for the City of Moose Jaw’s waste water treatment facilities.

“There’s no drip nozzles around here,” the Saskatchewan farmer said.

“On hot, windy days, we let ’er rip.”

During the 30 years since the Baildon Moose Jaw Effluent Irrigation project began, 3,300 acres of sandy soil that were badly eroded during the 1930s have become good agricultural land capable of growing more than poor pasture.

“It made good dirt out of yellow sand,” said Swenson.

The idea of using waste water from Moose Jaw was Swenson’s father’s idea. In 1974, after a series of floods and water quality problems in the Qu’Appelle River Valley, a government report recommended keeping Moose Jaw and Regina’s untreated waste water out of the river.

Swenson believed the water could be pumped onto agricultural land so the sandy soil would act as a filter and the crops could use the nutrients.

Not everyone embraced the idea.

Neighbours quit talking to the family and others were afraid the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, a major economic boost in Moose Jaw, would have to relocate because more birds hovered over the land, feeding on the waste.

It took eight years for the project to become reality in 1984 with federal, provincial and municipal funding.

It’s estimated that the nutrient-rich water source has doubled crop yields and reduced fertilizer needs.

“There is no question none of us would have viable dryland farms today,” Swenson said.

It’s not uncommon for the six farmers involved in the project to pump 20 inches of water on their land to grow canola, wheat, corn and hay. Irrigators use 23 centre pivots to pump 80 percent of the waste water from the settling ponds 10 kilometres away.

Effluent irrigation is not without its problems. Salt from city water conditioners has raised the salt level of the

land, and corrosive chemicals in the water play havoc with the irrigation equipment.

Environment Canada recently asked Moose Jaw to develop a pollution prevention program to monitor the amounts of ammonia and chlorine in the water. A study suggested that ground water levels in the area have been increasing since the project began.

Despite problems, Swenson said using waste water for irrigation is an option other prairie communities should adopt to help diversify crops and attract development.

According to a Canada Saskatchewan Irrigation Diversification Centre report, 65 effluent irrigation projects operate on the Prairies on 14,000 acres. It estimated that effluent irrigation could potentially water 150,000 acres and help eliminate undesirable discharge into natural water ways.

Effluent irrigation projects account for about five percent of the total prairie effluent discharge.

Don Jones, field co-ordinator with the Alberta Research Council’s Integrated Water Management Plan, said excess salt is a big problem with effluent irrigation. A simple fix would be to switch to potassium chloride from sodium chloride in most water softener systems.

Recycling water from waste water treatment facilities and other grey water may be key to solving looming water issues on the Prairies.

Cathy Main, program leader with the Integrated Water Management Plan, said water reuse has become a standard around the world, but Canadians are hesitant to embrace it because of the “ick factor” and possible increased costs.

Placing a realistic value on water use may prompt a search for new ways to promote water recycling, she said.

Few communities are willing to jump the environmental regulatory hurdles necessary to adopt such programs. She said it’s easier to pull water out of a river, use it, treat it and dump it back into the river.

Jones said paying a higher price to use fresh water for toilets will be the carrot needed to invest in water recycling programs.

“If fresh water is expensive, waste water will look cheap.”

ABOVE: Irrigators near Moose Jaw use pivot systems similar to this one to water canola, wheat, corn and hay. They pump 80 percent of the waste water from Moose Jaw settling ponds about 10 kilometres away. | file photo LEFT: Effluent from the Halbrite, Sask., lagoon is used to water a young orchard, replacing the former practice of releasing the effluent into a nearby stream. | file photo

47 percent

of the world’s population will live in areas of high water stress by 2030 |

source: united nations

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december 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER

the water issue

Household water use

average home uses 329 litres per day Limited access teaches restraint | Rural families that rely on hauling water and use supply from a cistern have found ways to reduce consumption

Water saving tips

»»Always run the dishwasher full. »»When waiting for hot water from

the tap, catch the cold water and use it to water plants or fill the kettle.

»»Put water in the refrigerator for

cold water to avoid running the tap until water is cold.

»»Don’t run the tap at full power to wash hands. »»Don’t let water run while brushing teeth or shaving. »»Don’t fill the sink more than necessary to do dishes.

Source: Marianne Stamm research

By Marianne Stamm Freelance writer

C

anadians use a lot of water.

Environment Canada says the average Canadian household used 329 litres of water a day in 2004, compared to the European average of 200 litres per day and 10 to 20 litres per day in subSaharan Africa.

It seems Canadians have something to learn about water conservation.

Three families in Cecil Lake, B.C., have learned the hard way to control their water use.

Many families in that part of the country buy their household water by the truck load. Ground water is generally poor quality and not everyone is happy with dugout water.

These families use an average of 60 litres per day. They’ve learned it doesn’t take more to keep themselves and their houses happy and clean.

Research has determined that paying for water affects the amount people use.

Environment Canada says metered households used an average of 266 litres per day in 2004, while flat rate users consumed 467 litres per day, which is a difference of 76 percent.

Maya Wenger, a mother of four, said a limited supply forces people to think differently about water.

“All the teaching they have been doing on water conservation, we have been doing all these years,” she said.

Added her daughter Esther, 12: “I think that we’re more aware of the need to save water.”

Doris Edwards agreed.

“We can run out. That’s part of it. I know that there isn’t an absolutely endless supply.”

Edwards and husband, Dwayne, raised three girls on cistern water.

So how do these families do it?

Environment Canada said 35 percent of household water is used for bathing. For these three families, a bath is a luxury. Showers are short.

They insist that daily showers aren’t necessary to stay clean and smell good. Water saver shower heads are the norm.

Beni Gut, who raises three children, two of them teenaged girls, with his wife, Irene, said such efforts become

more difficult as children become older.

“We notice that the kids shower more and longer now,” he said.

Gut has considered putting a timer in the shower or making it coin operated like in camping grounds.

Toilets typically use 30 percent of an average household’s water consumption. Most of the Cecil Lake families have low flush or dual flush toilets, and all of them go by the motto, “if it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”

Some use outhouses when outside in the summertime.

The Edwards family has made four weeks of water last an extra two weeks by buying a dual flush toilet and a front load washing machine. A 7,500 litre truck load of water costs about $95.

“It made about four or five days difference when we changed washing machines,” Gut says of his family’s front load washer.

The Wengers have a top load washer but have figured out how to make it more efficient.

“We have a big utility tub right beside the washing machine,” Wenger said.

“I drain the main water, and then I rinse on warm and I save the rinse water as the wash water for the next load. So other than the first load, I use half the amount of water.”

Doris Edwards said it’s important to always run the washing machine full. She didn’t allow her girls to do their own laundry because they would use more water.

Does it bother these families that they have to save water like this?

“No,” said Doris Edwards.

“I am used to it. I grew up having to be careful about using water.” The others agree and are more likely to point out the good side.

“A benefit from saving water is that you heat less water and use less power,” said Beni Gut. Added Irene: “You recognize how valuable water is.”

However, there is one area they would change if they could.

“If I could just use as much as possible — the shower. Just to stand under it for as long as I want,” Irene said.

Added Beni: “the rest is just habit.”

|

266 vs. 467

litres of water used by metered households versus flat-rate users |

source: environment canada

iStock photo

the water issue

THE WESTERN PRODUCER | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | december 31, 2009

63

cloud seeding

Managing water that falls from the sky Cloud seeding for hail suppression | Canadian experiments to encourage rainfall have been less successful than projects that reduce the size and power of hailstones

cloud seeding: turning silver into snow

1

2

Airplanes or ground generators spray silver iodide into clouds.

The silver iodide crystals have almost the same shape as ice crystals. Supercooled water droplets attach to the silver iodide and freeze, forming snow crystals.

3

As the water droplets freeze, heat is released, causing updrafts which pull more moist air into the clouds, making more precipitation.

The silver iodide crystals compete with hail seeds for available cloud moisture, thereby reducing the chance of large hailstones.

WP graphic by Michelle Houlden | Source: Weather Modification Association

By William DeKay Saskatoon newsroom

C

loud seeding is a growing industry around the world, aimed at harvesting rain and snow.

In Canada, however, the emphasis has been more on softening the blow inflicted by hailstorms.

Cloud seeding is a way of modifying weather by attempting to draw more moisture out of rain clouds, or change the precipitation that falls. It is usually done by releasing silver iodide particles into clouds.

Jim Renick, a retired meteorologist and past manager of the Alberta Severe Weather Management Society, says attempts were made to create water in Saskatchewan in the 1930s but with limited success.

“I think it’s an issue of having enough of the right clouds and enough in the area where you want the precipitation. I believe it could be done and I think there would be some effect, but it might be pretty small.”

A common concern with cloud seeding is that it might rob other areas of rain.

“The answer is no,” Renick said.

“We’ve never seen any evidence to

say that’s the case. When it rains in Alberta, does that mean it doesn’t rain in Saskatchewan? I look at it this way. If you seed a cloud, the moisture that falls on the ground evaporates tomorrow and is back in the atmosphere to produce another cloud.”

Terry Krauss, senior meteorologist at Weather Modification Inc., published a scientific article in the Journal of Atmospheric Research in 2004 that analyzed how hail suppression would affect precipitation in Alberta.

The study was motivated by concerns from rural residents during the drought of 2001-02 that hail suppression operations might reduce rainfall.

“The data support the claim that seeding caused an increase in rainfall,” he wrote.

“However, deliberate attempts to increase the precipitation over the larger agricultural area would necessitate a considerable increase in resources in order to seed a greater fraction of the total number of storms available.”

Alberta has focused on reducing hail damage because of the frequency of hailstorms in the Red Deer to

Calgary region, nicknamed “Hail Alley.”

Renick said the area is rich in hailstorms because of the topography, with the mountains having the biggest influence.

Alberta Agriculture ran a cloud seeding program from 1973-85 based on evidence that shooting silver iodide into hail clouds could soften ice stones and keep them from growing to the size of baseballs.

Since 1996, an initiative spearheaded by the insurance industry has done similar work, but geared more toward reducing property rather than agricultural damage.

“In Alberta, the goal to seeding clouds is to reduce crop and property damage by reducing the size of hail,” Renick said.

The idea is to inject hail clouds as they form with tiny particles to encourage them to produce more and smaller stones. Silver iodide, which bursts into a cloud of smoke when fired from a flare mounted on the wing of an aircraft, has been used since the 1950s to make artificial ice nuclei. Renick said a few grams form billions of particles.

Clouds are seeded as they form to

break up the process before it has a chance to create large hailstones.

“Insurance companies are backing the project because they’ve seen the results on the bottom line.”

Renick said most of the seeding is done by airplane when storms are expected to be intense enough to produce hail.

Firing silver iodide flares from the wings of aircraft is considered the most efficient delivery system, he added.

“It can be fairly exciting. It saves me a trip to the fair’s roller coaster ride,” he said.

“It does require flying in the updraft area of the storm and that’s where it gets exciting. You get a bit of a boost.

We’ve been doing it for a number of years without any particular incidents, but it’s an interesting ride for sure.”

Pilots have to keep seeding storms as long as they persist because it will continue to draw in fresh air and moisture.

“You just can’t seed it and let it go.

As long as you keep getting new growth and new air going into the storm it has to be continually seeded until it dies or moves past the area you’re trying to protect.”

Seeding the clouds

»»Modern cloud seeding has been

used in nearly 50 countries in the last 50 years.

»»As the need for water increases

worldwide, the demand for weather modification services will also increase. Similar increase in demand will occur in hail-prone regions.

»»More countries are turning to

cloud seeding to battle drought and maintain demand for water used in industry.

»»China is a recognized leader with

more than 40 years in weather control. With a population of 1.3 billion people, it requires vast amounts of water. The government practices cloud seeding to try to produce rain for farmers, stave off drought, clear away air pollution and smog and fill reservoirs. It was reported that during the lead up to the 2008 Summer Olympics, which fell during a traditional wet season for Beijing, any clouds that appeared were shot down.

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DECEMBER 31, 2009 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER