Water is flowing through southern Alberta’s irrigation districts.
“We’ve been moving water downstream, flushing our canals,” said St. Mary River Irrigation District (SMRID) general manager David Westwood. “We’re now starting to fill some of our pipelines and we’re still moving water to the eastern part of our district.”
According to Westwood, the SMRID is about a week behind last year’s timeline.
“That just had to do with a lot more snowfall and cooler, freezing temperatures through April,” Westwood said.
Following last week’s above-seasonal temperatures, Westwood expects water will be available throughout the district by the end of the week. But as the canals are filling up, the requests are flooding in.
“It flips quickly,” Westwood said. “There was none probably a couple weeks ago, as we still had some cooler temperatures, but soon as the weather started to get a bit warmer, we were getting demand and we are starting to fill some water orders.”
Water that, according to agronomist, is important for even germination in producer’s fields and will pay off in the months ahead.
“It’s just so much easier if a crop is all at the same stage as you go through weed control or fungicide or even as you go through harvest,” said regenerative agriculture agronomist Scott Gillespie with Plants Dig Soil Consulting.
There’s still one hurdle to overcome for one irrigator: According to the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District (LNID), construction-related leaks were found on its headworks canal on Apr. 25, which led to it being shut down the following day.
The LNID declined an interview request from Global News, but a notice published to its website on Friday says the board of directors approved one-inch of water for each irrigation acre delivered from the Keho Reservoir.
“The one-inch maximum water usage per irrigation acre is intended to help conserve some water in Keho Reservoir, but depending on weather and when the (Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation) Main Canal repairs can be completed, Keho Reservoir may encounter restrictions to outflow at times during the remainder of the 2023 water season,” it reads in part.
“There is still no definite timeline on how long the necessary repairs will take to be completed,” the notice says.