On March 22, the federal government announced it would develop such a strategy, calling it “an opportunity to discuss how we can address freshwater-related threats and opportunities,” protect freshwater ecosystems, and secure water for communities and the economy, according to a news release.

The Canada Water Agency, which was repurposed in 2024 as a stand-alone freshwater management agency separate from Environment and Climate Change Canada, will spearhead the strategy’s development.

While the announcement was scant on details of what such a strategy might look like, it said the agency will work with provinces and territories, First Nations, Inuit and Métis partners, “stakeholders across sectors” and the public.

Farmers should be among those consulted, the CFA said in a statement to Glacier FarmMedia.

“Water security is absolutely critical for the future of Canadian farmers. Farmers in different regions of Canada have been devastated by water issues over the past few years, such as the floods in B.C., or the ongoing long-term drought in the Prairie provinces,” a federation spokesperson said.

“A lack of water has severe negative impacts on any type of farm, no matter what they grow or raise.”

Prioritizing food security, agriculture

The strategy should protect farmers and mitigate the effects of water-related events. It should also secure predictable access to water so farmers can maintain food production — for example, through effective water management policies and investment in water infrastructure, CFA said.

“Farmers need to make it clear that food security and agriculture production should be prioritized if there was any issues with access to water.”

“Farmers are also on the front-line of climate change, dealing with the on-ground realities of water-related events,” CFA added. “They have experience and knowledge that will be critical in developing this strategy.”

While the announcement made no specific mention of the agriculture industry, the sector will have an opportunity to share its views during the public engagement process, “recognizing that freshwater is fundamental to our economy, powering industries, agriculture, and the growth of communities,” a federal spokesperson told Glacier FarmMedia.

The federal government has not yet set timelines for consultations, but said those will be announced “in the coming months.”

The post Get farmers in on federal water security strategy planning, CFA says appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The provincial government has hired WSP Canada, a professional service firm which combines science, advisory and engineering expertise. WSP will conduct a study on whether to build a storage reservoir and dam on the Belly River, which flows through southern Alberta and northwest Montana in the United States.

The research will also determine if improvements need to be made to the canal between the Waterton and St. Mary reservoirs. These changes could strengthen water resilience across southern Alberta. Several irrigation districts depend on the Belly River as a water source including Magrath, Mountain View, Raymond, St. Mary River, Taber and the United Irrigation Districts.

The government’s water management infrastructure is used for irrigation, municipal, industrial, agricultural and recreational use. Water management supports fish and wildlife habitat, flood mitigation and erosion protection. Water security guards against drought and flood and helps farmers and ranchers.

To ensure Alberta’s growing communities are protected and have the water supply they need, the government of Alberta says it will continue to invest in strong water management infrastructure.

RJ Sigurdson, Minister of Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, said the province is taking a whole-government approach to managing and maintaining provincial water infrastructure systems to ensure Alberta has a safe, reliable water supply.

The proposed reservoir on the Belly River, about five kilometres northwest of Mountain View in Cardston County, could improve water security, provide drought and flood resiliency and support the aquatic ecosystem.

The consultant will also determine if the water flow in the canal between the Waterton and St. Mary reservoirs could be improved. These studies are anticipated to take several years.

Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation owns and operates more than 80 dams, 340 kilometres of major irrigation headworks canals, four pumping stations and flood protection berms and dikes in the province.

The post Alberta announces new studies to account for future water needs in southern Alberta appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Will there be enough water to go around? What happens if there isn’t?

Answers can be found in the province’s current Water Act, passed in 1999, which contains the same “first in time, first in right” (FITFIR) system that was in place even before Alberta became a province.

It means a licence with an earlier priority number is considered more senior than one with a later-assigned number, which is called a junior licence. It allows a senior licensee to stall a junior licence holder’s allotment until they take their own.

But Alberta’s licence holders, including senior licensees like irrigation districts, don’t need to worry about that, said an academic water expert.

Co-operation needed

FITFIR has rarely been used in Alberta and that is unlikely to change, said David Percy, professor of energy law and policy with the University of Alberta. In fact, he said it has created a culture of negotiation.

A recent example is the agreement among 38 of the largest and oldest water licensees in southern Alberta, including irrigation districts, to reduce water use if severe drought conditions develop this spring or summer.

That’s where FITFIR and reality diverge. Junior licensees have power, said Percy, and it’s often within senior licensees’ best interests to agree on solutions that are as fair as possible to everyone involved.

“If junior licensees are all opposed to a particular provision of the plan, it might not get through, so they have to support them from time to time in order to get their support when it comes to other decision making on the water system.”

Municipalities and irrigation districts hold the majority of senior licenses in the province, although human consumption remains paramount.

Examples of junior licensees include golf courses, municipalities that have taken out multiple water licenses, and the food processing plants near Taber that were issued junior licenses in the 1990s or since 2000.

The situation involving irrigation districts with senior licenses and food processing plants with junior licences offers incentive for both parties to cooperate. Percy said.

FITFIR is partially the result of U.S. settler influence in the late 1800s, he said. The southern Prairies were in an extreme drought. European settlers were spreading into the region and some feared they would starve under the circumstances.

Adding to the problem was a common law inherited from England that forbade settlers from drawing water from watercourses unless they were owners of riparian land. According to albertaenvirolaws.ca, these riparian rights allowed anyone who owned land on the bank of any waterway to access that water for reasonable use.

“You couldn’t draw water which would lead to a perceptible diminution in the flow of the river,” said Percy.

Around this time, William Pearce with the department of the interior of the Northwest Territories (later to become Alberta, Saskatchewan and much of Manitoba) was introduced to irrigation by a Mormon settler from Utah named Charles Card.

Over the next several years Pearce and other officials investigated the value of irrigation and the American FITFIR system of water law. In 1894 the Dominion of Canada’s federal government passed the Northwest Territories Irrigation Act that applied to today’s three Prairie provinces and included FITFIR.

The act confirmed that the Crown owned all water and a specified diversion could only be attained with a licence.

“And in the event that there was insufficient water to satisfy all licensees, any dispute would be settled according to the date on which the licence was issued,” said Percy.

The southern Prairies continued to grow. The First World War created demand in Europe for Canadian grain, in the process causing cities like Lethbridge and Medicine Hat to grow rapidly. This led to concerns of whether the current system would meet these jurisdictions’ growing water needs.

The year 1930 saw big changes in the prairie water landscape. The Northwest Territories Irrigation Act was scuttled and the Natural Resources Transfer Agreements transferred ownership of all ungranted federal land and water to the individual provinces.

This enabled the three provinces to each pass their own water act. In Alberta’s case, it was the Provincial Water Resources Act, the ancestor of today’s Water Act. However, it reenacted the 1894 legislation almost word for word, said Percy, and also placed irrigation and agriculture high on the list of water priorities.

An amendment to the Water Resources Act in 1962 essentially gave Alberta near-total control of all water in the province.

Making a market

The passage of Alberta’s Water Act in 1999 retained the FITFIR principle. However, it also allowed users to gain water rights by transfer, subject to provincial government approval, in the process establishing a monetary value for Alberta’s water, said Percy.

“The important thing that I think the Water Act did in its 1999 passage was to recognize the economic value of water,” said Percy. “If you have excess water that you are using but you don’t really need, then you can always look at selling that water to somebody else who values it more highly.”

An example was the transfer of water rights from the Western Irrigation District to the developers of the CrossIron Mills mall in Rocky View County, just north of Calgary. The developers paid $15 million to the irrigation district to build a pipeline that replaced leaky, inefficient and old irrigation ditches.

The transaction made the WID more economically efficient, and in exchange, the WID transferred the amount of water saved to the developers.

“So the WID was just as happy they got an enclosed pipeline instead of a leaky ditch and the developer was delighted because they got the water they wanted,” said Percy.

The 1999 act didn’t create a free-for-all water trading marketplace. The provincial government reserved the right to declare a water emergency, which essentially allows it to decide the priority of water use.

“So rather than leaving that to government, there’s obviously a strong incentive for water licensees to get together and say, with the government’s approval, ‘let’s come up with a good system for sharing our available water this year.’ And that’s what’s happening at the moment.”

Changing times

Can Alberta’s Water Act deal with ongoing challenges presented by climate change? Percy believes it will suffice.

“It is certainly equipped to deal with the challenges of the type of drought we have faced so far. No senior licensee would be so foolish as to tempt the province to exercise its emergency powers under section 107 of the act.”

However, if extreme drought continues, there may be reason to consider other options, such as a system of allocation similar to one used in Australia.

“In the Murray-Darling river basin, no one obtains a right to a certain quantity of water. Instead, the governing body dictates a minimum flow that must be maintained to allow the river to function environmentally,” said Percy.

“Water users then get a right to a certain percentage of the flow that is available for public use. Thus, a major user might get the right to use one per cent of the available flow, not a specified quantity of water.”

Although the system has been controversial, Percy said it has worked reasonably well over the three decades it’s been in effect, “particularly in those parts of Australia where people bid for the available flow.”

The post Don’t fear FITFIR, says Alberta water expert appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

This time, if drought rears its ugly head, local farmers can use a new raw water pumping station built within the town’s existing infrastructure. 

Viking celebrated its new layer of drought protection during a grand opening in late April after three months of work. 

“Back in the early 1950s, we had a reservoir in town and we used to treat water for the residents of Viking,” said Doug Lefsrud, the town’s chief administrative officer.

The system expanded in the early ‘80s. Two water cells were established about 20 kilometres south of town that were capable of holding up to 227 million gallons. They were recharged by rainfall and by the Iron Creek, which flows through the region.

In the 2000s, available water from the system dropped dangerously low. Other communities along Highway 14 had similar problems, so they started an initiative to access Edmonton-area city water. It was successful, and Viking residents now get their potable water from Epcor out of Strathcona county.

In the meantime, Viking kept its water infrastructure and maintained its water licence in case local water was needed for firefighting or other emergencies. In 2023, Lefsrud asked town council if the infrastructure could be repurposed to help the region deal with drought.

“Last year, council wasn’t really interested,” he said.

That changed last fall, as Albertans began to talk more seriously about water availability and drought. Lefsrud approached council again, and they discussed ways to help farmers handle drought.

“We’re trying to get ahead. We want to give an alternative to anybody that might need water,” said Lefsrud.

“In the event of a water restriction, the first thing that gets shut off are all the big truck fills. We looked at that and looked at what our options would be to pull that water off of our reservoir systems.”

Viking’s above-ground reservoir was set up with a dual-pumping system station that filters raw water. Water from the two cells travels to the town reservoir through a pipeline. An above-ground suction line then draws water into the filter system, which removes particles.

Filtration was a major concern, said Lefsrud. If not filtered well, poor-quality water can damage expensive farm equipment and rob herbicides of their effectiveness when used for spraying.

Farmers or other residents who want to access raw water from the reservoir can set up an account number. At the fill station, they punch in a code and fill their tanks. At the end of the month, data is downloaded and billing is processed electronically.

The system uses two companies, FlowPoint and Lotic Technologies. FlowPoint provides the computer program that measures water volume sold and calculates data for billing. Lotic Technologies is the filter company.

The town of Viking invested $350,000-$375,000 to set up the fill site, buy the equipment and assemble the system.

Local project, big interest

The project has drawn attention locally and in the wider region. Town council sent a letter to Rebecca Schulz, minister of environment and protected areas, to tell her about it. The region’s provincial and federal politicians have also noted the value.

“Our agricultural community has been supportive. They appreciate the resource. Currently, we’ve sold about 25 codes,” said Lefsrud.

The water is available to everyone within a 100-kilometre radius. Residents of Minburn, Flagstaff, Wainwright and Beaver counties attended the open house.

“Folks from those areas are looking at water options. Those farmers are some of the folks that have applied for water,” Lefsrud said.

Viking’s project has also inspired other municipalities. The village of Holden is considering a similar project, though it may not have the necessary funding and could need grants to make up the gap.

“They have been basically sitting on their reservoir infrastructure since going on city water. They’re looking at this as well,” said Lefsrud.

He added that Viking is an example of what can be done using existing resources.

“We were sitting on the resource and the infrastructure here and just thought about what we can do to help mitigate drought if a pending drought is on its way.”

The post Viking turns on the taps of new water initiative appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The severe conditions have prompted Alberta to open water-sharing negotiations among license-holders for the first time in two decades, hoping to salvage output from two of its biggest industries.

Alberta, which relies on melting snow and precipitation for most of its water supply, has allocated water since 1894. That system prioritizes those who have held licenses the longest, although holders rarely exercise that right.

Alberta’s water talks underline the difficult compromises facing resource-rich regions adapting to extreme weather. Hydrologists say the future will bring Alberta more rain instead of snow due to climate change, which will strain summer water supplies.

The province produces most of Canada’s oil, natural gas and beef, plus big wheat and canola harvests, much of which it exports.

Irrigation to grow crops in dry areas accounts for 46 per cent of Alberta’s water allocation, with oil and gas using 10 per cent.

Reuters spoke with more than a dozen farm, energy and government officials and found those industries preparing for the drought to potentially scale back production and raise costs.

Drought could cause double-digit declines in Alberta’s wheat yields, based on crop production data from the past two decades. Oil producers are making costly contingency plans to store more water on site and truck water across the province.

Brad Deleeuw, who manages the 5,500-head Delta Cattle feedlot near Coaldale, Alberta, said the impact of water scarcity “could be huge.”

Deleeuw will prioritize watering cattle over irrigating his wheat, corn and barley, but that shift will likely reduce yields.

“You’d go from a black situation to a red situation pretty quick,” Deleeuw said, referring to financial losses.

If he must import significantly more expensive cattle feed this summer from the U.S. to make up for smaller Canadian crops, Deleeuw said he would have to reduce how many cattle Delta fattens for slaughter by Cargill and JBS.

Drought contributed to Canada’s beef herd shrinking this year to its smallest on record, according to Statistics Canada.

Snow water equivalent, which measures water content of mountain snowpack, was down 40 per cent as of March 5 from a year earlier in southern Alberta’s St. Mary River basin. The nearby Waterton basin was down 27 per cent, according to provincial and federal government data.

Crop hit

Some 70 per cent of Canada is abnormally dry or in drought, according to the government, with the driest conditions in Alberta and British Columbia.

Alberta’s largest-ever water-sharing talks could result in major consumers agreeing in early April to share water voluntarily with others downstream, environment ministry spokesperson Ryan Fournier said. If conditions remain dire, the province could declare an emergency and is working on a plan involving additional steps, Fournier said.

In 2001, the last time water-sharing negotiations happened, Alberta’s durum wheat yield was 22 bushels per acre, down 37 per cent from the previous five-year average, according to Statistics Canada. In dry 2021, spring wheat yield fell 35 per cent while barley yield dropped 36 per cent year-over-year. The vast majority of Alberta’s grain grows on dry land, not irrigated land.

Alex Ostrop, who farms near Lethbridge, is bracing to make do with much less water to irrigate fields. In 2001, his district’s water allocation was eight inches per acre or 38 per cent less than what Ostrop used last year.

“Commodity prices are down generally – (this year) would be a double whammy of lower commodity prices and reduced yields,” Ostrop said.

Costly crude

For oil companies, dry conditions may elevate costs by forcing them to shift drilling to sites with water access or to truck water, said Tristan Goodman, CEO of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada. Companies will not drill if wells get too expensive, he said.

Oil producers are renting on-site water storage structures known as C-rings and other swimming pool-sized spaces, drilling company Trican Well Service said.

“You’re seeing customers start to really think about how they’re going to be managing water months in advance – they just haven’t had to worry about that before,” Trican CEO Bradley Fedora told analysts in February.

For now, parts of Alberta and British Columbia with the most conventional drilling and fracking have manageable water levels, Goodman said.

Drilled wells did not decline in the dry years 2001 and 2017, according to data from industry group Enserva.

Shell is putting water contingency plans in place for its Alberta wells, spokesperson Stephen Doolan told Reuters, declining to give details. Suncor Energy told analysts the drought has prompted it to plan a water-treatment plant in its oil sands operations for the end of this decade.

With Alberta possibly heading to a drier future, the province is spending C$933 million to expand irrigation. That means Alberta will spread limited water supply over 230,000 additional acres, but the upgrade will reduce evaporation by converting open canals to pipelines, Alberta Agriculture Minister RJ Sigurdson said.

Oil and gas producers are maximizing efforts to store and recycle water, with all eyes on the skies, said Ken Wagner, CEO of Fraction Energy Services, which rents water storage equipment.

“It’s definitely top of everybody’s mind. We need some more snow and we need big rain.”

The post Farmers, oil drillers in parched Alberta brace for water shortage appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

A typical water licence allows the holder to divert water and use water, subject to the terms and conditions of the licence. Both surface and groundwater can be licenced. Regulations can be applied for both business use and individual use. There are about 25,000 water licences in Alberta.  

The Alberta government is asking Albertans with water licences issued before November 2021 to move them into the online system by the end of 2024. This will help the province understand how much water is available during a severe drought. 

Alberta’s Digital Regulatory Assurance System is a secure and confidential online platform. Licence holders can submit reports, apply for renewals or amendments, receive email reminders, and track their status. 

The information is used by Alberta Environment and Protected Areas to help water managers and users make important decisions on how to manage the drought.

RJ Sigurdson, the Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, said in a press release that moving to the digital system will help people manage their water licences.

Sigurdson said the province is facing the risk of severe drought and moving water licences into the digital system will help the government keep track of how much water is available in Alberta. 

The digital system is faster and easier for water licence holders to use. It will be easier to access and view licence records. It will also be easier to submit and track incident notifications. 

The system will provide easy access to important information that licence holders need to manage their licences. 

Moving into a digital system does not change or replace the original licence in any way. 

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Dubbed SWOT, short for Surface Water and Ocean Topography, the advanced radar satellite is designed to give scientists an unprecedented view of the life-giving fluid covering 70 per cent of the planet, shedding new light on the mechanics and consequences of climate change.

A Falcon 9 rocket, owned and operated by billionaire Elon Musk’s commercial launch company SpaceX, was set to liftoff before dawn on Thursday from the Vandenberg U.S. Space Force Base, about 275 km northwest of Los Angeles, to carry SWOT into orbit.

If all goes as planned, the SUV-sized satellite will produce research data within several months.

Nearly 20 years in development, SWOT incorporates advanced microwave radar technology that scientists say will collect height-surface measurements of oceans, lakes, reservoirs and rivers in high-definition detail over 90 per cent of the globe.

The data, compiled from radar sweeps of the planet at least twice every 21 days, will enhance ocean-circulation models, bolster weather and climate forecasts and aid in managing scarce freshwater supplies in drought-stricken regions, according to researchers.

The satellite was designed and built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles. Developed by the U.S. space agency in collaboration with its counterparts in France and Canada, SWOT was one of 15 missions listed by the National Research Council as projects NASA should undertake in the coming decade.

“It’s really the first mission to observe nearly all water on the planet’s surface,” said JPL scientist Ben Hamlington, who also leads NASA’s sea-level change team.

One major thrust of the mission is to explore how oceans absorb atmospheric heat and carbon dioxide in a natural process that moderates global temperatures and climate change.

Scanning the seas from orbit, SWOT is designed to precisely measure fine differences in surface elevations around smaller currents and eddies, where much the oceans’ drawdown of heat and carbon is believed to occur. And SWOT can do so with 10 times greater resolution than existing technologies, according to JPL.

Looking for oceans’ tipping point

Oceans are estimated to have absorbed more than 90 per cent of the excess heat trapped in Earth’s atmosphere by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Studying the mechanism by which that happens will help climate scientists answer a key question: “What is the turning point at which oceans start releasing, rather than absorbing, huge amounts of heat back into the atmosphere and accelerate global warming, rather than limiting it?” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, SWOT’s program scientist at NASA in Washington.

SWOT’s ability to discern smaller surface features also be used to study the impact of rising ocean levels on coastlines.

More precise data along tidal zones would help predict how far storm-surge flooding may penetrate inland, as well as the extent of saltwater intrusion into estuaries, wetlands and underground aquifers.

Freshwater bodies are another key focus SWOT, equipped to observe the entire length of nearly all rivers wider than 100 metres, as well as more than one million lakes and reservoirs larger than 15 acres.

Taking inventory of Earth’s water resources repeatedly over SWOT’s three-year mission will enable researchers to better trace fluctuations in the planet’s rivers and lakes during seasonal changes and major weather events.

NASA’s SWOT freshwater science lead, Tamlin Pavelsky, said collecting such data was akin to “taking the pulse of the world’s water system, so we’ll be able to see when it’s racing and we’ll be able to see when it’s slow.”

SWOT’s radar instrument operates at the so-called Ka-band frequency of the microwave spectrum, allowing scans to penetrate cloud cover and darkness over wide swaths of the Earth. This enables scientists to accurately map their observations in two dimensions regardless of weather or time of day and to cover large geographic areas far more quickly than before.

By comparison, previous studies of water bodies relied on data taken at specific points, such as river or ocean gauges, or from satellites that can only track measurements along a one-dimensional line, requiring scientists to fill in data gaps through extrapolation.

“Rather than giving us a line of elevations, it’s giving us a map of elevations, and that’s just a total game changer,” Pavelsky said.

— Steve Gorman is a Reuters correspondent in Los Angeles.

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The weather patterns have been rather unpredictable with monumental hail in Mexico City to extreme heat in Europe and Saharan winds that are dropping sand in the most remote of locations. Putting seed in the ground this year on the Canadian Prairies was either in mud or a dust bowl, while across Canada to the east we see the severe summer storm warnings already in play. And the Rocky Mountain snowpack has yet to come down.

It is frustrating for farmers, but fresh water is a gift and rather a rarity in the world. With only one per cent of the Earth’s surface in fresh water, soggy fields are a blessing many will never know.

Why is the world so dry?

Much of the freshwater reserves globally were disturbed by mankind through deforestation, resource development, industry, residential expansion, conflict and the planting of monocultures. Any balanced ecology is water producing — even the desert. The balance between animals, humans and plants has existed and the damaging chemical washes we now use, in the production of silver for example, did not previously exist at commercial levels.

Population growth and intensity around food-production areas also had a huge impact and propelled monocultures to provide food, spurred industry to provide fuel and supported other resource development often at the cost of fresh water. Using fresh water for fracking is an example of pulling water from the aquifers. But action above ground is where the land became exposed from any source of development, warmed the soil and threatened the valuable system of retaining water as precious canopy and roots were removed.

Conflict plays a huge role in water availability worldwide as land is contaminated and areas are burned or cleared so opposing forces cannot hide. Add to this the air pollution, chemical run-off from weaponry and from the lack of facilities for human waste, and the result is the destruction of all living things and the critical infrastructure that supports a water system.

From an agricultural perspective, I like to use the example of the Beqaa Valley, a 120-kilometre strip that represents 40 per cent of the arable land in Lebanon. The rich soil was built in ancient times by rotational grazing and semi-nomadic farming. Conflict and the accompanying monoculture of hashish, opium and grapes have changed the land to a very arid area now dependent on irrigation. An unintended consequence is that the valley is also devoid of rural population because of the uncertain accessibility to water.

In many areas of the world where there is a water shortage, such as the western U.S. and in the Middle East, sea water is scrubbed to make fresh water. This scrubbed water supplies whole cities, such as in San Diego County where the desalination plant produces 50 million gallons of drinking water per day. In the desert of Qatar, large pipelines transport scrubbed water to grow feed and food.

This is a concept that may seem foreign to Canadians but the solutions for future water shortages near shorelines lie within our borders. Canada has the longest coastline in the world. We have yet to fully embrace the potential of this geographical wonder in the production of food, feed, salt and scrubbed water.

Our water and our waterways are unique. Of the 52,445 islands in Canada, the 30,000 that are inhabited need consistent food delivery and freshwater supplies. The old saying “surrounded by water and not a drop to drink” (from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”) haunts many societies globally as it does here at home. Freshwater challenges are in land and at sea.

Being home to one-fifth of the world’s freshwater supply does not mitigate the risk of freshwater shortages to communities, nor does it assume that climate events will not happen here.

Water is found in Canada but the ecology in which it is naturally produced is disturbed as nearly 80 per cent of our population is urban, and that intensity has a profound effect on watersheds as communities live near the food and the sea. We have extensive resource development. These activities not only require a lot of water but also divert and displace natural watersheds. The rivers within our borders discharge nearly seven per cent of the global renewable water supply. Protecting our rivers is critical to ocean health.

We may not have warfare within our borders but we do have communities without fresh water. And though we are water abundant, we have yet to fully appreciate this valuable resource and to mitigate future risk with both an ecological framework and an intense investment in water technology.

Even with one-fifth of the world’s fresh water, we are not immune to climate events and need to retain and create fresh water — drop by precious drop.

The post Schoepp: Fresh water a gift we can’t afford to take for granted appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The changes, which took effect May 11, come at the request of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture (NSFA) — which has said that owners of small farm-level processing facilities shouldn’t be treated the same as multi-million-dollar processing plants, in terms of the required fees and regulatory approvals based on larger volumes of waste to manage.

The smaller operations will now be regulated through standard wastewater approval requirements, the province said.

The province said its Office of Regulatory Affairs and Service Effectiveness estimates the changes will save each on-farm business $308 per year.

“These changes reduce red tape while ensuring that environmental standards are met,” Environment Minister Timothy Halman said in a release. “With input from industry, we are better aligning regulatory approvals to environmental and business needs.”

These activities include construction, operation or reclamation at sites “associated with small farm operations” involving:

• poultry, red meat, inland fish, dairy or dairy products, vegetable, or fruit processing plants;
• distilleries or wineries;
• breweries that produce 150,000 litres or more of alcoholic beverages per year;
• fish meal plants; and
• food additive or supplement manufacturing plants.

Regulatory changes such as these are occurring across the country to better align with smaller farm processing facilities, the ministry said via email.

“Other Canadian jurisdictions are, or are in the process of, moving to a model of regulation for these industries that better align regulatory approvals to the environmental risks,” ministry spokesperson Tracy Baron said.

— Liam O’Connor reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Saskatoon.

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“It’s well known that there are certain things in water — chemicals, salts, metal cations — that can antagonize the spray,” said well-known spray expert Tom Wolf. “With much lower water levels, it’s conceivable that those antagonists will have possibly increased in concentration.”

Not only could herbicides be less effective due to water changes, producers are also facing a potential shortage this spring.

So book water tests as soon as possible, advised Wolf, a partner in Agrimetrix, a Saskatoon company focused on agricultural spraying.

“First thing we do, is we take a water sample and look at it,” he said. “We’re just looking for clarity.”

Turbid water, or water with solids in it (usually clay), can antagonize glyphosate — a process where a herbicide is rendered less effective.

“The herbicide is so highly polar that it is attracted to those little tiny soil colloids. They tie it up, they don’t want to release it,” he said.

Hard metal cations are the best-known antagonists, and can be measured by using electrical connectivity. Electrical connectivity meters are reasonably inexpensive but unfortunately, they can’t tell you what is in the water.

“We’re looking for a number that might be cause for further investigation,” said Wolf. “If it’s a number of 500 or less, it really isn’t a problem.”

But if the reading is higher than 500, Wolf first looks for bicarbonates.

“Bicarbonates are parts of most waters that can bind to some herbicides and they get less active,” he said. “The most important group of herbicides involved are the Group 1 herbicides, which include grass killers, wild oat herbicides in cereals and all sorts of oilseeds.”

If bicarbonate levels are high, the solution is to add some ammonium sulphate, he said.

Hardness is another issue, and there are five hardness cations (which have a positive charge) that can bind to weak acid herbicides.

“Almost all of our herbicides are weak acid,” said Wolf. “The degree to which they are interfered with depends on the herbicides. Glyphosate, the most commonly used herbicide in Canada, is most susceptible to it.”

The most common hardness cations are calcium and magnesium, followed by sodium, potassium, and iron.

“All five of those antagonize the herbicide at different degrees,” he said.

With a hardness measurement of 500 parts per million or more, “you should probably condition the water,” said Wolf.

However, hardness is calculated from just calcium and magnesium but other elements, such as sodium or iron, could also be present in significant concentrations.

They “don’t figure into this equation, and yet they contribute to hardness, or antagonism. And so that’s why we look at each of these ones individually,” he said.

What to do

With a parts-per-million reading, “we can pretty much predict how much damage they might do and how much conditioning the water needs,” Wolf said.

Herbicides are designed to fit into enzymes and make them inactive, but when a cation interferes with the herbicide, it stops that process.

If your lab test comes back with evidence of hard water, there are several things you can do.

“If it’s too hard, you can look for a better source of water,” said Wolf. “If it’s surface water like a pond or dugout, it probably won’t be hard water and will probably have other kinds of issues, like turbidity.”

Hard water is more common for subsurface water, such as wells.

“Different aquifers in the province have different hardness. Even on the same farm, if you drill a different well, you may tap into different aquifers and get two different water qualities. I’ve definitely seen that on farms.”

If a better water source isn’t available, it’s possible to condition the water with a chemical additive — or increase the herbicide rates.

However, Wolf doesn’t necessarily recommend increasing herbicide rates (especially when there are shortages) because it’s costly and there are conditioning options.

“Ammonium sulphate is a well-known water conditioner that helps cure the hard water problems,” he said. “Basically, there are recommendations for different water hardness and how much ammonium sulphate you should add to the water.

“You fill your tank half full of water, you add ammonium sulphate, agitate and it dissolves quite readily and then you add your herbicide and then you top it up to finish.”

Using a formula developed at the North Dakota State University, a producer can determine how much ammonium sulphate is needed. (For more info, see this article at Wolf’s Sprayers 101 website: www.tinyurl.com/4mb779sy.)

“If we know the parts per million, we can pretty much predict how much damage they might do and how much conditioning the water needs,” he said.

There are some other products available, but Wolf doesn’t recommend them. For example, citric acid can be used, but it changes the pH of the water.

“You can get a real mess if you don’t know what you’re doing. Acidifying the spray mixture can help some herbicides, but it can really hurt others and you have to know which is which.”

When there’s a shortage or when the cost of a herbicide skyrockets, the temptation is to reduce the application rate.

But don’t do that blindly, said Wolf.

“When you shave rates, it’s really important to look after water quality,” he said. “It’s really a concentration issue. Your water quality is constant and it’s a molecular ratio. If you put fewer herbicide molecules in there, the molecules in the water will overpower that.”

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