Alberta's irrigators press expansion plans after an unusual winter refilled reservoirs
Warm weather and early mountain snowmelt refilled southern Alberta reservoirs this winter, strengthening the case for new water storage projects for farms.
Irrigation districts in southern Alberta say water supply is back to a more normal footing after an unusual winter in which warm temperatures and early snowmelt in the Rockies filled reservoirs ahead of the typical spring and summer runoff period. CBC reports that the change has eased pressure after two difficult seasons when water deliveries had to be curtailed because of drought and low storage levels.
One of the main examples is the St. Mary River Irrigation District, which supplies about 200,000 hectares of farmland between Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. The area supports potatoes, sugar beets, wheat and other cash crops. General manager David Westwood said allocations have returned to a more familiar level after the district was forced to cut supply by about one-third during the 2024 drought crisis, with reduced deliveries continuing last year as well.
The standard allocation in the district is 14 inches of water per acre, equal to about 1.4 million litres. Alberta government figures now show the Oldman Reservoir, the province's largest, is more than 80% full this spring. Even so, irrigation managers argue that the current recovery does not remove the long-term problem: runoff and precipitation are becoming less predictable, so the province needs more capacity to capture water when it is available.
That is why the three largest districts, St. Mary, Eastern and Bow River, are advancing major reservoir expansion projects. Together, the projects would allow irrigation for another 75,000 hectares of cropland and increase Alberta's irrigated area by more than 10%. In 2020, the districts, the province and the Canada Infrastructure Bank announced an $815 million three-way funding agreement to support the works.
The projects are now going through federal impact assessments, and construction could run through the end of the decade. District managers say the future of crop production in the region depends on being able to store more water during wet periods and deploy it during drought years. For Alberta agriculture, the debate is no longer only about this season's reservoir levels; it is about how to build a larger and more resilient irrigation system under increasingly volatile climate conditions.