Front Burner - Drought bears down on Alberta

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

After a warm, dry winter, Albertans are preparing for what could be a devastatingly dry summer. Snowpack is low, reservoirs around the province are well below seasonal levels, and farmers are already ...anticipating a difficult growing season.But this isn't a one-off. Experts say the multi-year drying trend is likely to continue, which will have major implications for water use in the province — the biggest of which is agriculture. Is the future of the province's biggest industry at risk? CBC Calgary's Joel Dryden explains what a deepening drought could mean for life in Alberta in the decades ahead.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Ask any Albertan and they'll tell you it's been an unusually warm winter this year with a lot less snow than usual. Like a lot less. For a province that's been dealing with a multi-year drought, that is bad news.
Starting point is 00:00:52 My creek, which normally flows six feet wide all year, the last two years it has dried right up in the springtime. Like, I'm talking like dust. Water reservoirs across the province are sitting at levels well below what's normal for this time of year. And Calgary could start restricting people's outdoor water use as early as May. As water levels here at the Bow River continue to remain low, the city is urging Calgarians to immediately reduce water usage. This has been years in the making, and it's about much more than being able to water your lawn. Farmers are facing an existential crisis because huge amounts of water is needed for irrigation. Experts say that if this continues, farming in Alberta is going to have to adapt to this new climate future or face dire consequences. Joel Dryden is a reporter with CBC Calgary, and he's been looking into the situation for the last couple of months.
Starting point is 00:01:42 He's going to break it all down with us today. Hey, Joel, thanks so much for coming on to the show. It is always great to have you. Hey, Jamie, thanks for having me. So can you paint a bit of a picture for me? Just how dry is it in Alberta right now? Yeah, this is one of those funny things where, you know, the province, like we just saw a bunch of snow over the past week. So everyone's, you know, you feel a little bit of relief, right? You start to think like, well, maybe things will be better, but it's not anywhere close to what Alberta is going to need long-term, right? Like it's kind of like a drop in the bucket. Soils and reservoirs and groundwater are so dry in the mountains that we would need above normal snowpacks to to break the drought. And it's too early really to say kind of definitively how bad it's going to get.
Starting point is 00:02:36 But there are just so many warning signs now that it's becoming impossible to ignore. becoming impossible to ignore, really. You mentioned, you know, the water shortage advisories, there are snowpack surveys, you know, below average snowpack at most sites. And as you said, you know, what's important to remember is this isn't just this year, right? It's like not just an isolated year of challenges. This is challenges on top of challenges on top of challenges from years past, right? And, you know, I live in the city, I live in Calgary. So it's not top of your radar if you live in the city, but if you live in Southern Alberta, you know, where it's semi-arid, you're thinking about this like a lot, like all the time. That really came to the top of my radar a few years ago.
Starting point is 00:03:21 I was down in Lethbridge. We did a pop-up bureau in Southern Alberta. And, you know, part of the exercise of that was, you know, let's connect with people living down here to see what's on their mind. And what really surprised me was one of the issues that kept coming up for people was concerns about future water shortages. You know, I went out at one point with a fly fisherman. He took me to the Old Man River, a quiet section of the Old Man River, to show me kind of, you know, what he was worried he would lose. It's very important to the Indigenous people,
Starting point is 00:03:57 as well as everyone from species within and around the headwaters, all the way to Hudson Bay. And, you know, when it comes to agriculture, you know, last year we started seeing some really significant warning signs. I went down in June to Vulcan County, which is about an hour southeast of Calgary. And I went out with somebody from the agricultural department there on a back road. And I just can't tell you, like, it was just striking, right? Like in terms of what you've seen down there in that region before and what I was seeing then, at that point, the province was seeing, you know, soil moisture reserves at 50-year lows for that time of year.
Starting point is 00:04:38 And just everywhere you looked, you know, it was just native grass, no color. It was striking. I know that it's impossible to say definitively, but like, what are the experts and scientists saying about how bad it could conceivably get here? What really sticks in my mind is what people have been telling us for years, right, in terms of kind of the compounding effects of this. You know, like when I was down in Lethbridge, one professor emphasized specifically down there in southern Alberta, you know, there's a lot of specific challenges down there because two-thirds of Canada's irrigation is in Alberta. Most of that's in Southern Alberta.
Starting point is 00:05:29 And he made a really dire warning at that point. His name is Stephan Keensel. He said, if you see a drought that's longer than two years, irrigation is in big trouble. We're all going to scramble for water as municipalities and industries to kind of, you know, keep our faucets going and flash forward to today. And we're in that boat, right? I spoke to a professor at the University of Calgary last week. She said she didn't see a way out of it. This year, actually, she likened it to a sponge.
Starting point is 00:06:01 You know, you think of a sponge that's been emptying for two years, you know, like we basically need two years of rainfall to kind of pull us out of this. And because of that, you know, because she couldn't see a way out of it, essentially her point was that every Albertan is going to see impacts to their life because of this, not just farmers and ranchers. impacts to their life because of this, not just farmers and ranchers. Another example, one that stuck with me of how dire it is, is what's happening to some of the reservoir levels and some of the towns we're talking about. And just talk to me a little bit more about that. Yeah. So this is what's going to be, I think, really interesting to watch over the next year. And some of these impacts we started to see last summer,
Starting point is 00:06:46 including in Pincher Creek, which is in Southern Alberta. Water levels behind the dam there actually dropped so low that the district was being forced to pump water. And that actually led to costs of hauling water up to $8,000 a day. So this is something that, you know, it's not just, you know, you may have to be more cognizant of what you do with your water. It also means you may be, you know, municipalities may be paying for that, for access this year. Just to be clear, is it fair to say that this drought is a result of human-caused climate change?
Starting point is 00:07:25 Is it fair to say that this drought is a result of human-caused climate change? I think that's what experts would say, yes. I think that many experts I've spoke to have said that the summers are getting warmer, they're getting drier, the ice caps are melting. There's going to be less access to water long-term just because of what we're seeing on a global scale in Alberta. But, you know, I mentioned, I went down to Vulcan County last summer and, you know, sometimes we dip in and out of these drought stories, right? Like we come into them when it's bad and then we don't talk about them when it's good. But when you're down there and you're actually talking to people
Starting point is 00:08:01 who have lived it, it's, you know, you get a sense of how stressful this is, like how dire it is for them. For instance, in Vulcan County, where it was really challenging last year, this individual told me that, you know, she's lived in the county for nearly three decades. We would have two, three days in a row where we couldn't go to work because the whole county was getting rained on. Right. And you'd get two inches of rain over the course of three days or less, right?
Starting point is 00:08:32 There was some rain in scattered years, but... Last year was good. We had a decent rain last year. But other than that, we just haven't seen it for seven years, honestly. But other than that, we just haven't seen it for seven years, honestly. Like our rainfall has been significantly lower than it should be for that extended period of time. And really the concern is, you know, not are we going to have a bad year, but is this going to continue to get worse? Are we going to be able to make it?
Starting point is 00:09:17 You know, is this going to continue to be a viable place for us to run our businesses. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.
Starting point is 00:09:39 I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. So this sounds like a really serious situation. And maybe let's talk about what governments have been doing to get prepared for it. Because as you mentioned,
Starting point is 00:10:19 you know, people have seen this coming, right? Yeah, exactly. And I mean, you know, because this is compounding, I think this is turning into a bigger kind of societal push than it has been before. And we really started to get a sense of, before we knew really how bad this was shaping up to be, at the start of the year, the provincial government came out and said, you know, municipalities, they essentially put out a communication saying, municipalities, you have to be really aware of this. Like, this is on the radar. You have to start making plans. And, you know, that has moved to last week, as you referenced, Calgary Mayor Joe DeGondek saying outdoor water restrictions might be in play. We are taking this very seriously. The province is taking it very seriously.
Starting point is 00:11:04 We remain very active in communicating to the public what we're looking at. So our first step is to educate people on the fact that we are in a drought. program for drought proofing and flood defense. But probably the biggest thing that's been going on in recent months is what the government, the provincial government has called unprecedented water sharing negotiations. We heard about that first in January, but we're expecting an update within the next couple of weeks, actually. essentially, this is who is going to have access to water this summer. And there's so much to get into there. Take me through that. When you say who's going to have access to water, like, what do you mean by that? Yeah. And this is something that I think, you know, it's been in place since 1894,
Starting point is 00:11:58 the system that we have here, but people wouldn't have paid much attention to it, right? Because it didn't have impacts on their lives. So finally, the system that's been in place since 1994, we're actually going to have to grapple with this year. So essentially the water licensing system in Alberta, experts essentially say it's antiquated. It's not the only system like this, but if you want to use water in Alberta, you need what's called a water license. And as I said, in southern Alberta, it's semi-arid. So the use of water down there is really restricted.
Starting point is 00:12:31 And it's actually already fully allocated. So the basins are fully allocated. So if you want water, you have to purchase a water license from somebody who has one already. It's a system that's called first in time, first in rights. So basically whoever had the water first has the rights to it. And basically it means the biggest water license holders have to voluntarily share their water with municipalities and industry. And there's so much irrigation in the South that so much of the water goes there. And so these negotiations have been going on for months. And people who are involved
Starting point is 00:13:12 say they're going really well. We haven't heard kind of the outcomes of them yet. But I think, you know, it really serves to kind of underline, you know, the challenges of working within this system from 1894, you know, we may see sufficient water sharing this year, it might work, but you can see a future, you know, in which our water supply continues to decline, where those negotiations might not, you know, go so well, they might get a little more complicated. So it's definitely, that's something to put a pin in, you know, not just this year, but I think if drought conditions persist in subsequent years, over and over and over, we're going to be going back to these negotiations. Right. Because you just mentioned that it's voluntary, right? So if I'm one of these people that has, you know, one of the first water licenses, please correct me if I'm not understanding this properly,
Starting point is 00:14:06 you know, I guess I could say to a local municipality, no, I actually need all of that water. Like you can't have it to what, turn your taps on or run your dishwasher? Is that like conceivable? That is essentially how it is written. You know, everyone who I have talked to from the province to experts, everybody says, oh, it's unlikely that it would ever get to that point. You know, like we're confident that they would voluntarily share, right? But conceivably, there is a future in which something along those lines would happen. And you can imagine if Calgary residents aren't getting water because irrigators are using all of it, how contentious that would
Starting point is 00:14:46 be, right? So yeah, it's hard to see a future in which that happens, but that is essentially the way that this is written. And just to be clear, when we're talking about irrigators, you know, the holders of these water licenses, like who are they? Yeah, that's a big question that we've been trying to dig into. I mean, you know, when Southern Alberta, not to get into history too much here, but when Southern Alberta was settled, there's so much history around irrigation among those first settlers there, right? So when, and we'll get into the First Nation side of this later, but they essentially got the first water licenses because they were the first people to land there.
Starting point is 00:15:29 And, you know, so much of Alberta's water goes to ag, right? Because that's Palliser's Triangle down there, right? This is an area that it's not natural to farm there. In fact, people who don't have irrigation down there, dryland farmers have in recent years been saying, I don't know if I can make a go of this anymore. You know, like so many of them are reconsidering their future in the southern half of the province. So you need irrigation. It's a must to be able to farm down there. But it's not natural, right?
Starting point is 00:15:58 So such a huge portion of Alberta's water goes there. You know, water is so highly valued in the south. But if, you know, irrigators don't see full reservoirs this year, they could see their overall yields going down. And that could actually really impact the whole economy in the southern half of the province. When we're talking about yields and like the effect that this could have on the overall economy, what kind of stuff are we talking about here that's like at risk? Yeah, so I mean, aside from irrigation itself, which adds something like 940 million actually to the province's economy, something like 35,000 jobs. You know, farmers down there say that, you know, it's a must not just for the work that
Starting point is 00:16:52 they do, but also for the other kind of industries that rely on the water from irrigation. So for instance, there are French fry plants, beef slaughterhouses, canola plants that are kind of like fixtures in the area. And water from irrigation is actually provided to more than 40 municipalities and thousands of rural residents in Alberta. And businesses actually receive water through the system to support their operations. So we're not just talking about ag that would be impacted should we see really significant problems down there. It really would touch, you know, everyone who lives there.
Starting point is 00:17:29 Yeah, big downstream effects. Sorry, I realized that was kind of a weird pun considering what we're talking about. That is interesting, yeah. Joel, what about the oil and gas sector? How do they fit in here? You know, obviously they do use water, right? Yeah, and the Alberta Energy Regulator actually had an eye on this late last year. They warned fossil fuel companies that their access to water could be restricted this year.
Starting point is 00:18:00 And, you know, as I said, ag, the biggest user of water, oil and gas isn't. And, you know, as I said, ag, the biggest user of water, oil and gas isn't. But there are actually some kind of unique concerns at play here, especially when it comes to fracking. You know, it uses a small portion of Alberta's water compared to ag. But that water used by fracking can't be returned to the system. So that is definitely something that has fallen under the microscope over the past few months, something I think we're going to be keeping a close eye on over the coming months. All right. And earlier you mentioned First Nations.
Starting point is 00:18:39 And where do they fit in? How is this going to affect them? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I just don't think you can talk about first in time, first in right without mentioning First Nations. You know, this system, when it was initially put in place, didn't consider the water needs of Indigenous peoples. And, you know, some First Nations people say that system ignores, you know, their history on the land and the rights of first nations communities to water and of course you can't ignore you know all this comes as first nation communities have been fighting for clean water for years right so you know the provincial government says you know first nations are participating in the water sharing negotiations, but that's definitely an area of focus that,
Starting point is 00:19:27 you know, when we find, we learn these final results in the next couple of weeks, that's something we're going to be looking at closely. I just want to spend some time with you before we wrap up talking about the future implications here, right? And so you mentioned earlier that experts are saying that, you know, life in Alberta could really change. People may have to really change the way they go about their daily lives. And expand on that for me. the way they go about their daily lives. And expand on that for me.
Starting point is 00:20:08 How exactly might they have to change? What might Alberta look like in 10 years? I mean, I think that's such an interesting question. And I think, you know, it's funny because I think water is something that we all take for granted in day-to-day life, right? And so much of this has to do with water management, right. Which I don't know how many people are that careful about that, but it could get tough. You know, people could get asked to modify their behaviors in ways that they're not used to, right. Like this isn't just about irrigators and industry changing their behavior. You know,
Starting point is 00:20:44 it could be impacts to, to the day-to-day lives of people living in Calgary, for instance, right? And, you know, I think it also kind of brings this thing I heard from the head of the Rural Municipalities Association last year. Essentially, at that point, we were seeing lots of these agricultural disasters being declared. And I just wanted to ask him just kind of generally, what was he thinking in terms of the drought conditions that we were seeing? And he said something interesting, I thought. He said, this is a challenging year, but what this tells us is that we actually have to start having a bigger conversation about the future of farming. We're definitely into a trend.
Starting point is 00:21:25 So I think that we need to start looking for conversations around efficiency in our use of agricultural disasters, what type of mitigation we could have coming into a hotter, drier future. We've got to start having bigger discussions on how we can mitigate this for the long run. And one of the things I've talked a lot about... Alberta is also having a conversation right now about, you know, what is the future of its energy industry, right? And those two industries are so integral to the province's kind of like broader myths about itself and the way that it has understood itself in history, right? And so those are both changing in really significant ways that I don't think we understand yet.
Starting point is 00:22:02 You and I were talking before this interview about a column that our colleague Jason Markasoff wrote recently about this issue around drought and water. And he kind of likened it to the pandemic in a way. And just tell me a little bit more about the argument that he was making. I think it's an extremely apt metaphor in that the way that he put it is that this could be a societal issue, much like the pandemic was. You know, this as bad as last year's drought situation was, you know, water trucks being brought in, feed crunches for cattle farmers, lawn sprinkler limits in Calgary,
Starting point is 00:22:45 you know, this year could be worse. And is society ready to come together and collectively address these challenges the way that they did at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? And when we talk about long-term solutions here, what are people talking about? Because I imagine that it's, you know, it's not sustainable for a town like Pincher Creek to keep hauling in water defense. But, you know, that's all mitigation and that's all important. But, you know, as this moves away from industry and moves into people's daily lives, it's not going to be abstract anymore. It's going to be very present. And, you know, when it comes to industry, you know, farming is going to look a lot different in the years to come. That's according to experts with droughts and floods expected to intensify with glaciers, ice caps melting.
Starting point is 00:23:54 You know, the same, the head of the RMA I mentioned in that same conversation, he pointed to South Africa, actually, where they had a, they had a dire drought. And they responded to it by actually using the landscape to mitigate and create sort of a more certain future, whether it was a better use of water, water recycling, check dams, and a lot of other conversations, even around crop choices. So I think those discussions... So I think it's these types of conversations,
Starting point is 00:24:19 really looking at how we do things, why we do things with a critical eye that he's going to be watching for, that he thinks are going to be taking place, you know, over the months and years to come. And I think as we continue to see these issues compound on top of each other, that's going to become more and more pressing, more and more urgent. And I think this year is the first kind of step along that path. Okay. Joel, thanks very much for this. Yeah, thank you for having me.
Starting point is 00:00:00 That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you soon.

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