| Danielle Droitsch now knows every twist and turn of the Bow River, from its beginning in the Wapta Icefield to its end in the bone-dry prairies west of Medicine Hat.
Droitsch, head of the Bow Riverkeeper organization, spent 29 days canoeing 657 kilometres down the river with paddling partner Jim Kievet. She says she’s now even more passionate about the need to protect and restore degraded sections of the river, which provides water to more than one million Albertans.
Bow Riverkeeper is associated with the Waterkeepers Alliance, an international organization that fights to protect watersheds around the world.
"This is really where the real work begins," says Droitsch. "What we did is we collected information and we were able to see the river in person, upfront. And that means it’s our obligation to take what we learned and what we saw to the people that live in this watershed…."
She adds that they plan to share their observations about what needs to happen to protect the river for the future and to restore the areas that need fixing now.
An Alberta Environment report that summarizes various studies on the South Saskatchewan River basin says the Bow River is already "highly allocated" and that water flow in the eastern sections near Bassano – downstream of major water withdrawals to irrigation districts – is lower than it should be.
"The health of the aquatic environment is believed to be following a long-term declining trend downstream of the major water withdrawals on the Bow and Oldman rivers," states the report.
Droitsch says that the provincial government’s long-awaited South Saskatchewan River Basin Water Management Plan is key to saving the river. The province is expected to release a draft of the plan this fall.
She adds that she is hopeful the province won’t just try and maintain the status quo on the river, but will actually try to increase the flow to the most ecologically degraded sections.
"For those stretches of the river where it has been acknowledged by the government to be unhealthy because of water extraction, let’s not call defeat on that stretch of river because we haven’t been able to manage it well in the past," she says. "I think Albertans know that we can do better on water management and I think they expect the government to set objectives that meet environmental needs."
Droitsch says it’s also time for the province to look at how much water from the Bow River is going to irrigation districts. Currently 75 per cent of all water drawn from the Bow River goes to agriculture. And the province’s first-in-time, first-in-right policy, which gives priority to users who’ve had water licences for the longest period of time, should be reconsidered, she says.
However, Robert Moyles, spokesperson for Alberta Environment, says the policy is not on the table. Irrigation districts have some of the oldest water licences in the province.
"That really is a principle upon which all water legislation is based in Alberta, so it’s not a principle that we would revisit," he says.
Moyles adds it’s possible that in the future, the government could stop giving out water licences on the Bow if it determines too much water is being allocated, as has already happened in the Oldman, Belly, Waterton and St. Mary rivers.
"People need to start realizing that rivers in southern Alberta are approaching the limits of the amount of water we can take out of them. We have to start making some difficult decisions about how much water we want to leave behind to preserve the aquatic environment," he says.
Droitsch is putting together a video from her trip and she’ll be making presentations this fall at various communities along the Bow River. |
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