“Every year, these rivers seem to be getting smaller, faster,” the 48-year-old said as he whipped a fishing line over the Crowsnest River.

“We are pushing it to the absolute breaking point”

During the second half of this century, most Canadian Rocky glaciers will melt, according to a 2019 study in Water Resources Research. The region’s water outlook will be “bleak” long before then, said University of Lethbridge geographer Christopher Hopkins. Currently, warmer temperatures are causing mountain snow and ice to melt earlier in the year, increasing the likelihood of summertime water shortages, according to research published last year in Environmental Reviews.

Alberta could face a $22.1-billion loss, or roughly six per cent of its gross domestic product, as Saskatchewan River Basin flows drop, according to a study last year in the journal Ecological Economics.

At the same time, water demand is growing.

A seven-hour drive downstream from Olson’s fishing spot, Saskatchewan is planning a $4-billion expansion of its irrigation system. Upstream in the Rockies, developers have proposed eight new steel-supplying coal mines.

While Canada is the world’s third most water-abundant nation, Prairie water supply depends on how much snow collects in the Rockies — known as the region’s “water towers” — and how quickly it runs off as it melts.

But water abundance is a Prairie myth, scientists say.

As the climate changes, winter precipitation falls more frequently as rain than snow, leaving less water stored in the mountains, hydrologist John Pomeroy said.

Water conditions over the last 20 years have been especially volatile, according to tree ring data that records annual water and temperature conditions dating back 900 years, said Dave Sauchyn, director of the University of Regina’s Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative.

That period saw both a prolonged drought in 1999-2003 and the 2013 flood that wrought $6 billion in damages.

“That these two events occurred within 10 years of each other is extraordinary, and very likely a manifestation of increasing extremes from climate change,” said Pomeroy, who heads the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Water Futures Program.

In June, a record heat wave seared Western Canada that scientists said would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change. By the end of August, Alberta had issued 18 low-water advisories for rivers.

As water demand grew in dry southern Alberta, the province stopped issuing new water licences there in 2007 and has held in reserve 11,000 acre-feet of water from the Oldman River flowing eastward from the Rockies. However the reserve is a drop in the bucket compared to Alberta’s total surface water allocations of 7.5 million acre-feet.

And when the province floated the idea of lifting the reserve’s limits by sector, it stirred up fears that it could divert scarce water to coal mines. Unlikely partnerships formed among environmentalists, ranchers, and country singers to fight the mines, underscoring how taut tensions over water use have become.

“It is clear that amending this regulation is directly linked to the coal companies’ need for water licences,” said Katie Morrison, conservation director at the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

The government has yet to decide the issue, spokesman Paul Hamnett said.

Ottawa rejected one coal proposal in August, citing the potential for water contamination and harm to plants and animals, while other proposals for coal mines in the Rockies’ sensitive eastern slopes are on hold pending a review of Alberta’s coal development policy due in November.

During 2019-20, Alberta’s Environmental Appeals Board handled 20 appeals of water licence decisions — the busiest two-year period since Alberta capped water licensing in 2007.

In one case, farmers appealed a golf club’s water diversion application out of fear it would deplete the aquifer. Another complaint took issue with water allotment for washing gravel.

Water scarcity has already forced a shift in Canada’s oilsands mines, which in 2019, recycled 78 per cent of the water they used, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator.

John Smith, who runs a ranch near Nanton, worries that a coal mine on a peak overlooking his farm could soak up the water his family has relied on for three generations.

“Our dads told us, our grandads told us, ‘If you don’t have water, you don’t have nothing,’” Smith said. “It really is our greatest resource, and it’s only going to become more scarce.”

Saskatchewan’s plan to quintuple its irrigated land to 500,000 acres would enable farmers to grow higher-priced crops such as potatoes and sugar beets.

“This is what we consider climate change adaptation,” said Patrick Boyle, spokesman for the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency.

But First Nations fishing and hunting in the downstream Saskatchewan River Delta, near the Manitoba border, see the plan threatening their way of life.

“We’re messing with nature,” said Vice-Chief Heather Bear of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations.

“Everything that happens upstream will affect us downstream.”

The post Water outlook ‘bleak’ as glaciers recede in Rocky Mountains appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The port agreement is subject to approval by BHP’s board and conditional on it moving ahead with Jansen’s first phase, Westshore said in a release.

The world’s biggest listed miner has estimated Jansen would cost up to US$5.7 billion in its first phases.

The project in Saskatchewan offers diversification into agricultural markets given that potash is a key element in plant nutrition that also makes crops more drought-resistant.

“BHP confirms that Westshore Terminals Limited Partnership … has signed an agreement to provide port services for the Jansen potash project in Saskatchewan,” BHP said in a statement to Reuters.

Last month BHP said it would present its board with a decision on whether to move ahead with Jansen after choosing between two port options.

“If the Jansen project does proceed, the agreement requires Westshore to handle potash for BHP for a term to 2051, subject to extension,” Westshore said.

Under the agreement, Vancouver-based Westshore would set up infrastructure to handle potash at Westshore’s Roberts Bank terminal by 2026, with BHP funding the construction. The terminal today handles Canadian and U.S. coal for export.

The pact would become binding on BHP if it announces a final decision to proceed with Jansen’s first stage, Westshore said.

The post BHP reaches port services deal for potash mine appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.