Phil Tank: Sask. plans irrigation from depleted Diefenbaker watershed

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In early December, the town of Leader, a community of nearly 900 near the Alberta border, declared a state of emergency.

The level of the river where the town gets its water had fallen to such a low level that its intake could no longer sustain the community’s vital supply. The state of emergency was lifted five days later, but Leader Mayor Aaron Wenzel called the issue “an ongoing concern” in a news release.

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Two months earlier, the village of Cumberland House, a mostly Indigenous community located in a remote spot near the Manitoba border, had also declared a state of emergency because only four weeks worth of water remained in its reservoir.

The common denominator for both communities is the South Saskatchewan River, which joins with its northern tributary to become the Saskatchewan River before it reaches Cumberland House.

The mighty South Saskatchewan also feeds Lake Diefenbaker, which provides drinking water to nearly two thirds of the province’s population. Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency has reduced outflows from the lake after 2023 yielded just 28 per cent of its historic inflow.

According to the Canadian Drought Monitor, the South Saskatchewan River sits at its second lowest level in the past 23 years.

Three Alberta rivers that begin in the Rocky Mountains coverge into the South Saskatchewan: the Bow River, the Oldman River and the Red Deer River.

In Alberta, the alarm has been sounding over the last year about the viability of these rivers and how to sustain them as climate change affects their supply by melting the glaciers and reducing the snowpack that nourishes them.

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An agreement between the three Prairie provinces mandates that activities in Alberta ensure that Saskatchewan receives half of the “natural flow” of water from the South Saskatchewan River. But if that natural flow declines, Saskatchewan gets less precious water.

Amid these grim conditions, Premier Scott Moe is planning to start as early as next year the Lake Diefenbaker irrigation project that was estimated to cost $4 billion four years ago.

Moe announced this at the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities convention in Regina this month. He acknowledged the project’s cost will now be “substantially more” than the original estimate.

The first phase alone has risen from $500 million to $1.15 billion.

Moe made his announcement before a receptive audience at SARM, which has pushed for the project.

That would be the same organization at the same convention where delegates voted 95 per cent in favour of a resolution that said calling carbon dioxide a pollutant is “disingenuous” and urged Saskatchewan to remove itself from any agreement that references “net zero.”

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Essentially, SARM overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution that dismisses the idea of manmade climate change caused by greenhouse gases, including carbon emissions. Notably, Saskatchewan’s nearly 300 rural municipalities are represented by officials more than three-quarters of whom are acclaimed.

At the same time as it endorses climate misinformation, SARM wants this province’s taxpayers to spend untold billions to fund a project that will draw from a watershed depleted by the same climate change that is being dismissed.

The irony is flowing robustly, even if the province’s critical river system is not.

Last year may well have been an anomaly. But what if it isn’t? Despite optimistic projections in this month’s Saskatchewan budget, the situation looks bleak for the province again this year.

The Canadian Drought Monitor’s February report describes rivers in Alberta, like the ones that converge to form the South Saskatchewan, as at “record low levels.”

In Saskatchewan, years of drought have reduced surface water and below normal runoff will hinder recovery for dry soils, the report says.

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The drought monitor map from Feb. 29 shows most of the province in moderate drought with swaths of severe drought and pockets of extreme drought near the Alberta border.

That report makes this a particularly questionable time to start spending billions on a project that depends on a healthy river system.

But it seems consistent for a Saskatchewan Party government that has made opposing climate action its brand.

Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

ptank@postmedia.com

twitter.com/thinktankSK

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