Wet winter needed to feed next years' crops, say Alberta irrigators amid early water shut-off

Lake Newell, a reservoir south of Brooks, Alta. that helps feed water to farmland as well as various municipal, industrial, wildlife and recreational areas, is less than half the level it should be heading into winter. 

The lake is a part of the Eastern Irrigation District (EID), an area east of Calgary bound by the Red Deer river to the north, and the Bow River to the south. On Sept. 25, EID shut down its irrigation season roughly two weeks ahead of when it normally would, due to dry conditions throughout the summer that have strained water supply. 

The day that it shuttered operations, EID was 100,000 acre-feet below normal water storage levels across its five main reservoirs, with Lake Newell making up the bulk of that deficit. 

EID is one of Alberta's biggest irrigation districts, second only to St. Mary River Irrigation District (SMRID), which, serving over 500,000 acres, is the largest irrigator in North America. SMRID also shut-down operations early this year on Sept. 22. 

Officials from both irrigation districts told CBC News that a smaller than normal snowpack at the end of last winter, combined with high temperatures early in the spring and little to no rainfall throughout the summer, has left their systems with one of the lowest water levels in recent memory. 

"This is a pretty severe year," said David Westwood, the general manager of SMRID.

Westwood said that typically, snowmelt early in the spring helps replenish reservoirs before the irrigation season begins. But because of this year's smaller snowpack, some irrigation districts started off the season with a lower water supply than normal. Hot weather in May meant farmers could seed their crops earlier, but it also meant they needed water. 

"Farmers started irrigating hard and that demand never really subsided because of the drought that we experienced all summer long," said Westwood.

Westwood said they had to cut back their water allocations to farmers twice this summer as reservoir levels dropped, which he believes is a first for SMRID. 

Impact to farmers

While most crops have already been harvested in both the EID and SMRID, Westwood said sugar beet and potato farmers will be impacted by the early shut-offs because they harvest into October. 

Gary Tokariuk has a 900 acre irrigated farm outside of Lethbridge, and is also the president of Alberta Sugarbeet growers. In addition to sugar beets, Tokariuk grows dry peas, beans and hard red spring wheat. 

Tokariuk said that while SMRID's early shut down didn't impact him because he had already finished watering his crop for the season, other farmers weren't so fortunate. 

"Was it detrimental? You know, it depends where you are and who you are and how you farm," said Tokariuk.

"There's a lot of sandy soil farms that need water to make a nice harvest, so those guys were a little caught off guard this year by the shutdown on the 22nd."

He said farmers in his area received only about two inches of rainfall throughout this years' growing season — normally, they are in the eight to ten inch range. 

Tokariuk said there have been previous years of severe drought, or times when the reservoirs have been low at the beginning of the season. In 2011, he said farmers in his district were only allocated 12 inches at the start of the year, but that because of adequate rainfall throughout the summer, most crops did fine. 

"Things can change in a hurry. [In 2011] we had nine inches of rain in three days and there was no more drought. So you know, it's always on the back of your mind. You take water for granted and you never should."

Tokariuk said that what he and other farmers are most worried about is next years' water supply, now that Saint Mary reservoir is so low. 

Both EID and SMRID stopped irrigation early with the hope that precipitation throughout the fall would bolster reservoir levels before winter began. But Westwood said their need for rain doesn't stop there. 

"We need to have good precipitation events throughout the offseason … and [we need] an above average snowpack," said Westwood.

"We would need a combination of both of those events to be able to return to what I would call average irrigation supply levels. But our storage levels are far below what we would like to go into winter [with], so we are recognizing that next year could be a challenging year."

The year ahead

Lynn Jacobson, president of the Alberta Federation of Agriculture, says how and when precipitation comes will impact next years' water supply. 

"The climate is changing and if we get another year with a really warm spring, how that moisture comes down during the winter [and] early spring is going to be very critical," said Jacobson. 

"If we get that moisture coming down as rain instead of snow, that reduces our capacity to feed the system further for the rest of the year. Because when it comes as rain [it] rushes off the mountains right away and down to the drainage systems. So it goes past our storage systems."

Jacobson said that most reservoirs rely on the slower act of snowpacks melting throughout the summer to keep their supply consistent. If a lot of rain comes all at once, reservoirs might not have the capacity to store it all, lessening their ability to capitalize on what could be the biggest moisture event of the year. 

If reservoirs haven't been replenished by the start of the next growing season, Jacobson said farmers may adjust their seeding plans and plant crops that require less water, such as pulses.

"It's critical I think for all of Alberta basically to start taking a look and how we're going to handle this and what are some of the options," said Jacobson.

Increasing resiliency 

In the fall of 2020, the Alberta Government announced a $815 million dollar federally funded plan to modernize irrigation systems across the province. 

Ivan Freisen, general manager of the EID, said the projects happening in his district as a result of the modernization program have increased his system's efficiency. Converting open air canals to underground pipelines for example, means less water is lost through evaporation. 

Expanding and creating new reservoirs to hold excess water when a high volume of rain comes could also increase districts' resiliency to a changing climate, said Freisen.

"[Reservoirs] can mitigate some of these floods and droughts both in concert, they are dual purpose facilities," said Freisen.

"It doesn't just create water security for our district, it creates water security essentially for all of southern Alberta too. You start putting all these reservoirs together, there's water management across the whole bow basin."

Jacobson added that irrigation districts may also have to examine the amount of acres they're irrigating, if a strain on supply continues. 

"During the 80s, we had a multi-year drought, but the irrigation systems weren't supplying as many acres then as they [do now]," said Jacobson.

In 2021, EID approved an expansion plan of up to 34,000 additional acres. In 2022, SMRID proposed an 80,000 acre expansion. 

Freisen said all of EID's expansion decisions are data driven and supported by evidence that their system has become more efficient over the years. He also said they only take on a maximum of 3000 additional acres per year. 

"We're not using any more water out of the river, our licenses are finite."