WATER, AGRICULTURE AND RURAL COMMUNITIES

While most urban Albertans have access to an ample supply of high quality drinking water; this is not always the case for rural residents. During recent periods of drought, farmers have scrambled to find sufficient water for their homes and livestock. Water hauling by truck and miles of water pipelines could be seen everywhere. Thousands of larger dugouts and deeper wells were constructed to replace failed water supplies.

The governments of Alberta and Canada have co-operated to develop a farm water supply program that supports both domestic and livestock needs. It’s called the Canada-Alberta Farm Water Program and helps farmers develop long-term, on-farm water supplies. The Farm Water Program will pay up to one-third of development costs, to a maximum of $5,000 per farm unit. These projects focus on long-term permanent water supply solutions. Projects include wells, pipelines, dugouts, stock dams, spring development, cisterns, and remote watering systems.

Good livestock management

When it comes to raising and selling beef, Alberta producers know from experience that there are more factors at play than price and quality. The cattle feeder business is complex and to help its members stay competitive the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association (ACFA) has developed a comprehensive website providing business, environmental and other information plus links to related websites. For beef producers, some of the more critical environmental issues are manure management practices, including land applications and handling it within the feedlots. If not done properly, manure contaminants can get into the water system through spring and rain run-off or by manure leaching and polluting the groundwater.

Fortunately, effective government regulation, a responsible livestock industry and collaborative community involvement have resulted in a strong livestock industry with an improving environmental record.

The challenge continues

Protecting water re-sources can be a challenge, even in places where we expect pure water. A five-year research program conducted in Cypress Hills Provincial Park in Southern Alberta demonstrates how challenging this task can be.

In one of the studies, the Alberta Research Council (ARC) worked alongside government, community and industry stakeholders to compare continuous and rotational livestock grazing effects on riparian (within the flood plain and slightly beyond) vegetation and water quality. Results support previous research showing that livestock prefer grazing in riparian areas due to availability of water and abundance and quality of vegetation. Although livestock generally consumed more riparian zone forage than was desirable, ARC researchers found that livestock grazing generally had a very small impact on water quality.

Research also showed that even supposedly ‘pure’ water isn’t always clean. Isolated springs in the Cypress Hills often exhibited elevated levels of nitrogen and phosphorus that may contribute to reduced water quality downstream.

Mining water effluent

Researchers at the Alberta Research Council (ARC) are working to create a new mindset by examining ways to mine water effluent before it is released into the environment. They hope to capture potentially valuable nutrients and chemicals that are present in many effluents.

The approach builds on the success that many effluent producers have achieved with tertiary wastewater treatment technologies. Although these technologies can now produce sludge that can be disposed of in an environmentally sustainable manner, ARC researchers want to go one step further and remove the valuable nutrients and chemicals dissolved in the water. Capturing these compounds can help companies save money and improve the ecosystem.

ARC is looking to partner with an industrial plant and demonstrate that thinking ‘outside the box’ can be both economically viable for the owners and beneficial to the environment.

Water for irrigation

Agriculture is the single largest user of water in Alberta. There are 13 irrigation districts in Southern Alberta supplying water to about 1.3 million acres growing more than 50 different crops. Irrigating such a large amount of common and specialty crops significantly increases the economic returns to farming communities. But not everyone wishing to irrigate is assured of an ample supply of water. Since the amount of water is limited, it has to be apportioned. This is particularly significant during dry years. In order to allow farmers to plan their crops, projecting the available water supply becomes critically important. Thus crop growers are looking for ways to conserve water and protect its quality by using appropriate irrigation equipment, tillage practices, maintaining buffer strips, avoiding over-fertilization and proper use of pesticides. Such steps help ensure that the available water resources for irrigation can be managed on a sustained basis.

Before the barbecue

Barbecuing pork is more common today than it was a decade ago. This growing trend is partly due to Alberta Pork’s efforts to familiarize Albertans on the nutritional value of pork. But getting people to eat and enjoy pork is the easy part of their job. As with other industries, the challenge for the pork industry is demonstrating to the public that their business is sustainable – economically, environmentally and socially.

An important issue facing Alberta Pork and the province’s 2,000 pork producers is paying attention to the environment, and that means managing manure effectively. This includes paying careful attention to lagoon construction, locating buildings on low permeability soils, and incorporating manure into the land away from lakes or streams and at proper application rates. In Alberta, regulations and good working relations between producers, regulators and the public have helped this market grow.

Water for food production

Most Canadians equate Alberta with oil and natural gas. However the largest and fastest growing part of the province’s manufacturing industry is food and beverage processing. Today this sector accounts for about a quarter of the province’s manufacturing and contributes around $10 billion per year in shipments. Food and beverage processing also employs nearly 20,000 people.

Alberta has been blessed with a lot of productive agricultural land and consequently the food and beverage industry has the capacity to continue to grow. With only nine percent of Canada’s population, Alberta accounts for 50 percent of Canada’s beef supplies and 25 percent of Canada’s agricultural production. A key reason for Alberta’s success in food processing has been an ample supply of high quality water and the continuing growth in the food and beverage sector will depend on adequate water supplies.

Contented cows and happy fish

ows and Fish is an organization dedicated to helping cattle producers restore and maintain the health of wetlands or riparian areas. These areas are the transitional zones between the river or creek and uplands, generally the flood plains and small transitional strips.

Riparian areas are important since they harbor a large part of our biodiversity. They store floodwater during periods of high runoff and help recharge aquifers, and protect fish habitat. Riparian areas benefit everyone, the rancher, the fisherman, and Mother Nature.

Cows and Fish have produced an easy-to-apply field workbook for ranchers and farmers. It includes checklists for assessing the health of these important riparian areas. They also help track the progress of corrective measures in order to obtain results.

• Focus on Alberta
• Alberta’s Water Resources
• The Land
• Best Judgements
• Forestry
• Real People
• Water Workers
• Mixing Oil & Water
• Water Knowledge
• Saving Water with Wind
• Providing for the Public
• Sponsors

Water shortages are foreign to most Alberta urban residents, but something that many communities, acreages and farms in east central Alberta face with increasing frequency. The people of this region depend on spring run-off for their water supply, however over the past few years of drought and little snow some water reservoirs have begun to dry up. Some water consumers started hauling water while others were on the verge of doing so.

Furthermore, following the Walkerton and North Battleford water contamination incidents, the Alberta government tightened the water quality standards resulting in many plants having to be upgraded and municipalities having to engage only certified water treatment plant operators. The resulting extra costs were difficult to recover by communities with few rate payers.

The solution for some has been to seek private sector delivery of water services. Ten years ago Tofield and Ryley requested commercial proposals for water services and awarded the job to ATCO’s subsidiary company, CU Water Limited. CU Water Limited is part of the ATCO Group of companies, a premier Alberta-based corporation operating worldwide in five business groups: Utilities, Power Generation, Logistics & Energy Services, Technologies, and Industrials.

The company extended this water pipeline by an additional 50 km to Viking when, during the drought year of 2002, several communities were in urgent need of alternate water supplies. The extension of the water pipeline was ‘fast-tracked’ with the award of grant funding for the Public/Private Partnership in mid-February to the water being turned on in Viking in early October.

This pipeline, and the rural distribution lines that have been constructed, now serve several rural and smaller urban centres in the region, including Tofield, Ryley, Holden, Bruce and Viking. In addition to the communities, the pipeline serves a number of industrial and agricultural customers with treated water.

CU Water provides a critical service to Strathcona and Beaver Counties. In addition to pipeline service, the company operates commercial truck fill stations, provides bulk delivery to several communities, and owns or operates two urban distribution systems. From this small beginning, the company hopes to be able to serve more Albertans with the benefits of a reliable and quality water supply.