Nowhere To Go But Down For Canada's Prairie Water Supplies - Toronto Star

[hatrack]

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On the supply side, precipitation, while not substantial to begin with, has been declining steadily. None of 10 sites surveyed in Alberta and Saskatchewan has experienced an increase in precipitation over the last 100 years or so, and several have seen declines of 15 or 20 per cent. At the same time, river flow has decreased significantly, especially in summer when the human demands for irrigation and industry are greatest.

It's not just that humans are damming and siphoning off water from the rivers — the sources are diminishing. Most of the glaciers that feed the major rivers crossing Alberta and Saskatchewan have shrunk by about 25 per cent over the last century. In this instance, one picture is indeed worth a thousand words — or numbers. You only have to see photos of glaciers taken decades apart to know what's happening.

That's the supply — the demand is changing at an even greater rate. Growing feed for the booming livestock industry in Alberta requires irrigation from already "oversubscribed" rivers. Some estimates are that livestock numbers will double over the next decade.

And an even more sensitive area — the tar sands, Alberta's and Canada's fossil fuel future — consumes huge amounts of water, three to six barrels worth for every barrel of oil. And, of course, consumption will rise to what Schindler and Donahue see as unsustainable levels as the oil sands boom.

Actually, it's unsustainable already. And I'm sure that most of the intellectual energy focused on that industry is concerned with lowering the price of recovery to ensure that tar-sands oil is globally competitive, not with the consumption of water. It is a dire picture, and while Schindler and Donahue give credit to the few organizations that are trying to get a handle on the problem, it's easy to see that the momentum behind Alberta's growth and economy would be nearly impossible to slow. For instance, they suggest that it "may prove wise to keep human populations in the dry western prairie provinces relatively low" to forestall some of the worst outcomes. What politician is going to buy that?

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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146261011502&call_pageid=970599119419