It’s been five years since the start of Water for Life, say ecologists — now it’s time for some real action.
Alberta Environment released a revised version of its Water for Life Strategy this week to coincide with the program’s fifth anniversary celebration in Calgary . The document also responds to a report from the Alberta Water Council last February. That report called on the province to speed up efforts to protect aquatic ecosystems, set clear goals and invest more in research. Alberta has changed significantly in the last five years, said Cara Van Marck, spokesperson for Alberta Environment.
“We have many more people in the province, more industrial activity and changing water needs. It was necessary to adapt.”

The revised strategy is, for the most part, the same as the original draft from 2003, except condensed and there’s been some tweaking. It now makes specific mention of climate change, for example, as well as drinking water safety in aboriginal communities. It also states that Water for Life would be better integrated with other plans such as the Land-Use Framework, which did not exist in 2003.
University of Alberta biologist David Schindler described the strategy as a lot of pretty pictures and words without much detail.

“The words sound wonderful. Let’s see some action on it.”
The revised strategy explicitly commits the Province to creating water conservation objectives for all watersheds. The South Saskatchewan is the only watershed with such a goal right now and aims to restrict licensed water use if that use would take the river below 45 per cent of its natural flow.

The North Saskatchewan watershed has started work on such a target through the Cumulative Effects Framework for the industrial heartland, said Frank Vagi, St. Albert resident and member of the Sturgeon River Watershed Initiative. That framework, which is supposed to restrict industry taking water from the river if doing so would threaten aquatic life, is supposed to kick in this January.

Vagi said he would personally like the Province to bring in price signals to get companies to save more water. (The strategy says the government should complete a study using economic instruments to influence water demand — something it was originally supposed to have done by 2007.) The Province already charges industry about $15 a tonne for greenhouse gas emissions, he said. (Emitters can pay $15 a tonne into a technology fund to meet provincial emission targets.)

“If we charged industrial facilities $15 per cubic metre for water, you’d see a lot of facilities justifying an awful lot of efficiency projects very quickly.”

The big test for Water for Life is the new wetland strategy, Schindler said. The recommended strategy, which calls for a no net-loss approach to preserve wetlands throughout Alberta , was backed by 23 of the 25 government, industry and non-governmental groups involved in developing the document, but opposed by two groups representing oilsands companies. Those groups wanted wetlands in the north of the province excluded from the strategy.

“You can’t have a renewed Water for Life Strategy if you don’t protect wetlands,” Schindler said, and that change to the strategy would leave northern wetlands unprotected. The government risked alienating a broad coalition of watershed groups if it did what the oilsands groups have asked.
“If the (environment) minister is going to ‘compromise’ in his words on this, forget Water for Life,” said Schindler.

The Province will release details on how it plans to do the next stage of Water for Life next spring. The revised strategy can be found at www.waterforlife.ab.ca

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