On March 22, the federal government announced it would develop such a strategy, calling it “an opportunity to discuss how we can address freshwater-related threats and opportunities,” protect freshwater ecosystems, and secure water for communities and the economy, according to a news release.

The Canada Water Agency, which was repurposed in 2024 as a stand-alone freshwater management agency separate from Environment and Climate Change Canada, will spearhead the strategy’s development.

While the announcement was scant on details of what such a strategy might look like, it said the agency will work with provinces and territories, First Nations, Inuit and Métis partners, “stakeholders across sectors” and the public.

Farmers should be among those consulted, the CFA said in a statement to Glacier FarmMedia.

“Water security is absolutely critical for the future of Canadian farmers. Farmers in different regions of Canada have been devastated by water issues over the past few years, such as the floods in B.C., or the ongoing long-term drought in the Prairie provinces,” a federation spokesperson said.

“A lack of water has severe negative impacts on any type of farm, no matter what they grow or raise.”

Prioritizing food security, agriculture

The strategy should protect farmers and mitigate the effects of water-related events. It should also secure predictable access to water so farmers can maintain food production — for example, through effective water management policies and investment in water infrastructure, CFA said.

“Farmers need to make it clear that food security and agriculture production should be prioritized if there was any issues with access to water.”

“Farmers are also on the front-line of climate change, dealing with the on-ground realities of water-related events,” CFA added. “They have experience and knowledge that will be critical in developing this strategy.”

While the announcement made no specific mention of the agriculture industry, the sector will have an opportunity to share its views during the public engagement process, “recognizing that freshwater is fundamental to our economy, powering industries, agriculture, and the growth of communities,” a federal spokesperson told Glacier FarmMedia.

The federal government has not yet set timelines for consultations, but said those will be announced “in the coming months.”

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This seasonal storage underpins water security across much of the country. Prairie agriculture depends heavily on mountain snowpack for irrigation. The Great Lakes basin relies on snowmelt to sustain spring inflows that support navigation, ecosystems and freshwater withdrawals. Hydropower systems in British Columbia and Quebec depend on snow accumulation and melt timing in upland watersheds.

WHY IT MATTERS: Farmers on the Prairies rely on mountain snowpack for irrigation, the Great Lakes basin relies on snowmelt to sustain spring inflows, and hydroelectricity systems in B.C. and Quebec also depend on snow accumulation in upland watersheds.

For decades, scientists and water managers have relied on snow water equivalent (SWE) to measure this winter water reservoir. SWE estimates how much liquid water snowpack would produce if melted instantly. It is physically intuitive and remains central to seasonal water forecasting.

But climate change is altering not only how much snow falls, but where snowpack persists and how long it lasts. Warmer winters are bringing more rain instead of snow, more frequent mid-winter melt events and shorter snow-cover duration. In many regions, peak snowpack now arrives earlier. Snow cover is becoming more intermittent, particularly during early winter and spring transitions.

These changes expose a limitation in traditional SWE measurements at large spatial scales. As temperatures rise, snow may disappear across large portions of a landscape while remaining deep in isolated patches. Under such conditions, the average snow water equivalent can appear stable even though the snow-covered area has shrunk substantially.

To address this limitation, colleagues and I have introduced a complementary metric called snow water availability (SWA). Rather than averaging snow water across an entire area, SWA estimates how much water exists within the portion of the landscape that is covered with snow. The metric combines SWE with satellite measurements or climate reanalysis estimates of the fraction of snow cover over the landscape. The result is a measure particularly sensitive to patchy snow, a condition that is becoming more common in a warmer climate.

Snow water availability

Using our SWA metric, we conduct a large-scale analysis across Canada and Alaska and have found pronounced differences in how snow water is changing. In northern and eastern regions, snow water availability has increased in recent decades. In some Arctic and sub-Arctic areas, reduced sea ice and warmer air temperatures enhance atmospheric moisture, increasing snowfall in northern regions.

However, in Western Canada, especially within the Rocky Mountains, significant declines in SWA are emerging in mid-elevation mountain headwaters. These regions feed major river drainage systems, including the Saskatchewan, Fraser and Columbia river basins.

The response of mountain snowpack to warming is strongly elevation-dependent. High alpine zones, where winter temperatures remain well below freezing, can retain relatively stable snowpacks. Low elevations may already experience intermittent snow.

However, mid-elevation transitional zones, where winter temperatures frequently hover near freezing, are especially climate-sensitive. Small temperature increases can shift precipitation from snow to rain, shorten snow-cover duration and accelerate melt timing and rate.

This creates an important asymmetry. Although overall, SWA has increased across Canada and Alaska between 2000 and 2019, gains in sparsely populated northern regions do not compensate for losses in southern and western headwaters where water demand is highest.

In addition, mountain regions function as natural water towers. When snow storage declines there, the effects propagate downstream through entire river basins. Where snow disappears can matter more for water supply reliability than how much accumulates elsewhere. The geography of loss matters.

Uneven snowpack

The impacts can be amplified when declines in western headwaters coincide with widespread but less statistically pronounced decreases downstream. Combined, these patterns influence drainage basins that support a large share of Canada’s population and economic activity.

Historical events underscore this vulnerability. The 2015 Western Canada snow drought reduced streamflow originating in Rocky Mountain headwaters, stressing municipal systems, agriculture and aquatic ecosystems. During the winter of 2011-2012, reduced snowpack in southern Ontario and Quebec contributed to depressed Great Lakes water levels, affecting shipping and water management.

Climate variability adds further complexity. Large-scale ocean–atmosphere patterns can amplify or temporarily offset warming effects from year to year. Some winters remain snow-rich; others are dominated by rain-on-snow and/or mid-winter melt events. But long-term warming increases the likelihood of SWA loss in patchy snow regimes across climate-sensitive elevations.

Despite its advantages, our proposed SWA is not free of uncertainty. Snow observations remain sparse in remote northern and high-elevation regions. Satellite products are affected by cloud cover, vegetation and polar nights.

Climate reanalysis rely on modelling assumptions that vary among models and products. While basin-scale trends can be detected with reasonable confidence, uncertainty increases at finer spatial scales, where slope orientation, vegetation, terrain details and microclimate greatly affect SWA.

As water management decisions increasingly require sub-basin precision, improving spatial resolution and physical realism in snow monitoring becomes essential. Future research will require improved satellite observations, enhanced land-surface modelling and expanded ground-based monitoring networks.

In a warming climate, understanding how much snow exists, where it persists, how fragmented it becomes and how quickly it disappears will be central to anticipating water supply risks.

Canada’s snowpack is not simply shrinking or growing; it is becoming more uneven. And in an uneven landscape, the location of loss can matter more than the total amount of gain.

Ali Nazemi is an associate engineer of building, civil and environmental engineering at Concordia University in Montreal.

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Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz said water license holders had signed new memorandums of understanding covering four river basins in the southern half of the province.

Alberta, which produces most of Canada’s oil, natural gas and beef, plus big wheat and canola harvests, opened water-sharing negotiations among license-holders for the first time in two decades as it entered its fourth year of drought this year.

The province relies on melting snow and precipitation for most of its water supply and has allocated water since 1894.

Under the new agreements, municipalities will voluntarily reduce water consumption by 5-10 per cent, Schulz said, while industry will use the minimum amount of water needed for reliable operations.

Irrigation districts, which account for 46 per cent of Alberta’s water allocation, have also agreed to use less by allowing other water users to receive their share and then dividing up what is left.

The level of Alberta’s snowpack – the snow that accumulated over the past winter – in the last week of April will be key to determining when the water-sharing agreements will need to be activated, Schulz said.

“These agreements will only be implemented or activated if they are needed, and they will be regularly adjusted as drought conditions change,” she told a news conference.

Some municipalities had already begun proactively reducing water use, she added.

As of the end of March, 66 per cent of Canada was classed as abnormally dry or in drought, according to Agriculture Agri-Food Canada, a slight improvement from February.

Schulz said Alberta appeared to have more water available this year than in 2001, the last time water-sharing negotiations took place.

Alex Ostrop, chair of the Alberta Irrigation Districts Association who farms in the upper Oldman river basin in south-western Alberta, expects to receive roughly half the usual water allocation.

“(That) will have a significant operational and economic impact on each affected irrigation farmer and they have spent the spring making tough decisions with respect to cropping and rotation,” Ostrop told reporters.

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The severe conditions have prompted Alberta to open water-sharing negotiations among license-holders for the first time in two decades, hoping to salvage output from two of its biggest industries.

Alberta, which relies on melting snow and precipitation for most of its water supply, has allocated water since 1894. That system prioritizes those who have held licenses the longest, although holders rarely exercise that right.

Alberta’s water talks underline the difficult compromises facing resource-rich regions adapting to extreme weather. Hydrologists say the future will bring Alberta more rain instead of snow due to climate change, which will strain summer water supplies.

The province produces most of Canada’s oil, natural gas and beef, plus big wheat and canola harvests, much of which it exports.

Irrigation to grow crops in dry areas accounts for 46 per cent of Alberta’s water allocation, with oil and gas using 10 per cent.

Reuters spoke with more than a dozen farm, energy and government officials and found those industries preparing for the drought to potentially scale back production and raise costs.

Drought could cause double-digit declines in Alberta’s wheat yields, based on crop production data from the past two decades. Oil producers are making costly contingency plans to store more water on site and truck water across the province.

Brad Deleeuw, who manages the 5,500-head Delta Cattle feedlot near Coaldale, Alberta, said the impact of water scarcity “could be huge.”

Deleeuw will prioritize watering cattle over irrigating his wheat, corn and barley, but that shift will likely reduce yields.

“You’d go from a black situation to a red situation pretty quick,” Deleeuw said, referring to financial losses.

If he must import significantly more expensive cattle feed this summer from the U.S. to make up for smaller Canadian crops, Deleeuw said he would have to reduce how many cattle Delta fattens for slaughter by Cargill and JBS.

Drought contributed to Canada’s beef herd shrinking this year to its smallest on record, according to Statistics Canada.

Snow water equivalent, which measures water content of mountain snowpack, was down 40 per cent as of March 5 from a year earlier in southern Alberta’s St. Mary River basin. The nearby Waterton basin was down 27 per cent, according to provincial and federal government data.

Crop hit

Some 70 per cent of Canada is abnormally dry or in drought, according to the government, with the driest conditions in Alberta and British Columbia.

Alberta’s largest-ever water-sharing talks could result in major consumers agreeing in early April to share water voluntarily with others downstream, environment ministry spokesperson Ryan Fournier said. If conditions remain dire, the province could declare an emergency and is working on a plan involving additional steps, Fournier said.

In 2001, the last time water-sharing negotiations happened, Alberta’s durum wheat yield was 22 bushels per acre, down 37 per cent from the previous five-year average, according to Statistics Canada. In dry 2021, spring wheat yield fell 35 per cent while barley yield dropped 36 per cent year-over-year. The vast majority of Alberta’s grain grows on dry land, not irrigated land.

Alex Ostrop, who farms near Lethbridge, is bracing to make do with much less water to irrigate fields. In 2001, his district’s water allocation was eight inches per acre or 38 per cent less than what Ostrop used last year.

“Commodity prices are down generally – (this year) would be a double whammy of lower commodity prices and reduced yields,” Ostrop said.

Costly crude

For oil companies, dry conditions may elevate costs by forcing them to shift drilling to sites with water access or to truck water, said Tristan Goodman, CEO of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada. Companies will not drill if wells get too expensive, he said.

Oil producers are renting on-site water storage structures known as C-rings and other swimming pool-sized spaces, drilling company Trican Well Service said.

“You’re seeing customers start to really think about how they’re going to be managing water months in advance – they just haven’t had to worry about that before,” Trican CEO Bradley Fedora told analysts in February.

For now, parts of Alberta and British Columbia with the most conventional drilling and fracking have manageable water levels, Goodman said.

Drilled wells did not decline in the dry years 2001 and 2017, according to data from industry group Enserva.

Shell is putting water contingency plans in place for its Alberta wells, spokesperson Stephen Doolan told Reuters, declining to give details. Suncor Energy told analysts the drought has prompted it to plan a water-treatment plant in its oil sands operations for the end of this decade.

With Alberta possibly heading to a drier future, the province is spending C$933 million to expand irrigation. That means Alberta will spread limited water supply over 230,000 additional acres, but the upgrade will reduce evaporation by converting open canals to pipelines, Alberta Agriculture Minister RJ Sigurdson said.

Oil and gas producers are maximizing efforts to store and recycle water, with all eyes on the skies, said Ken Wagner, CEO of Fraction Energy Services, which rents water storage equipment.

“It’s definitely top of everybody’s mind. We need some more snow and we need big rain.”

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At 32.063 million hundredweight of potatoes this year, Alberta vaulted from third to first place as it improved on the previous year’s crop of 26.813 million. Manitoba moved into second spot from third with its harvest of 29.760 million cwt. following last year’s 26.139 million. Prince Edward Island saw its output reduced in 2023 to 25.813 million cwt. from 27.789 million. In 2023, the trio combined for 68 per cent of Canada’s total potato harvest of 128,801 million cwt.

Victoria Stamper, general manager of the United Potato Growers of Canada, noted production in Eastern Canada was mostly down in 2023. She said PEI was hit with rain during its harvest, while Quebec and New Brunswick contended with wet conditions through their summer and during harvest as well.

Stamper said Manitoba and especially Alberta saw greatly different conditions in 2023.

“Alberta has been in drought conditions for a few years now. They’ve been helped out with irrigation. Even that was getting tough. There were some growers who moved some their irrigation to from other crops to potatoes,” she commented.

StatCan calculated 397,232 acres of potatoes were seeded in Canada in 2023, of which 387,061 were harvested. That’s an improvement from 385,146 and 379,955 respectively in 2022. The average yield was up for a third consecutive year at 332.8 cwt. per acre compared to 325.1 in 2022 and 318.7 in 2021.

Alberta’s planted potato area came to 80,100 acres in 2023, up from 73,080 the previous year. Harvested acres rose to 76,440 from 71,325. Yields pushed past the 400 mark this year, at 419.5 cwt./ac. compared to 375.9 in 2022.

In Manitoba, planted acres nudged up to 81,000 in 2023 from 80,500 and those at harvest rose to 80,000 from 79,250. Yields improved to 372 cwt./ac. this year versus the 329.8 in 2022.

PEI’s potato acres saw some slight adjustments, with planted at 84,500 this year from 83,300 and harvested acres dipped to 83,000 from 83,200. Yields retreated to 311 cwt./ac. this year from the 334 in 2022.

As for the rest of the provinces, their potato crops were: New Brunswick 14.879 million cwt., Quebec 13.492 million, Ontario 8.602 million, British Columbia 2.140 million, Saskatchewan 1.780 million, Nova Scotia 222,000 and Newfoundland and Labrador 50,000.

Manitoba is scheduled to mark its Potato Production Days at the Canad Inns in Brandon from Jan. 24 to 25.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg. 

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A new report — dubbed a “landmark study” by the Potato Growers of Alberta — revealed the sector drove a total contribution of $2.87 billion to Canada’s economy in 2022.

It also notes the nationwide creation of 9,390 full-time-equivalent jobs, $662 million in employment income, a $1.3 billion contribution to GDP and $87 million in tax revenue to federal and provincial governments.

“We know that our industry has grown a lot in recent years but we had no accurate assessment of its overall impact on our economy,” said James Bareman, chair of the Potato Growers, in a webinar Tuesday.

“The industry could not have grown to this scale without the goodwill and collaboration of all parties involved: growers, processors, packers, the service sector, the scientific community and governments.”

The Alberta Potato Industry – Growing Success in 2022 was completed by Serecon and Nichols Applied Management — both Edmonton-based consultants with experience in developing economic impact assessments in the ag sphere.

The firms used world-standard industry methodology — further scrutinized and approved by an independent third-party university economist — to conduct the study.

“We wanted to ensure the study was accurate and the methodology was beyond reproach,” Potato Growers executive director Terence Hochstein wrote in a release.

“That’s why we went to great lengths to ensure it was conducted in a manner that would pass rigorous external scrutiny.”

Alberta is home to two broad regions of potato growers, Darren Haarsma of Serecon said: seed and table potatoes north of Calgary and processed potato products (chips, hash browns, et cetera) in the south.

Both subsectors are doing well, he said.

“Since 2017, there’s been marked increase in acres in Alberta across all types of production,” said Haarsma.

“A noteworthy point about the Alberta industry that makes it unique in comparison to other provinces is that the average production — thanks in large part to the extensive irrigation in Alberta — is about 30 per cent higher than the rest of Canada’s average.”

— Jeff Melchior is a reporter for Alberta Farmer in Edmonton.

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RJ Sigurdson, MLA for the constituency of Highwood, just south of Calgary, was sworn in Friday by Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani as Alberta’s new minister of agriculture and irrigation, replacing Nate Horner.

Horner, the MLA for Drumheller-Stettler since 2019 and the province’s ag minister since late 2021, was shuffled Friday to become Premier Danielle Smith’s new finance minister and president of Alberta Treasury Board. In that role, Horner replaces Jason Nixon, who in turn was named Friday as minister for seniors and community and social services.

Sigurdson also first came to the legislature in the 2019 election and was named last October as Smith’s parliamentary secretary for EMS reform. He easily held his seat in last month’s provincial election ahead of NDP challenger Jessica Hallam by a spread of 10,450 votes.

Before entering provincial politics, Sigurdson was a senior project/general manager with, and shareholder in, Avalanche Air Systems, a Calgary-area commercial HVAC and sheet metal contracting firm.

Sigurdson’s experience in the ag file includes growing up on a small family farm north of Cochrane and working on neighbouring farms in his teens.

READ MORE: Pre-election reports analyze Alberta’s ag issues

“I am so pleased to have this team working with me to deliver on the promises we made to Albertans during the election,” Smith said of the new 25-member cabinet in a release Friday. “These are not just our government’s priorities, they are Albertans’ priorities.”

Those priorities, the government said, include “continuing to grow and diversify the economy, keeping life affordable, reforming the health care system, tackling crime, providing help for those struggling and defending Alberta’s interests.”

Smith also announced a shuffle of deputy ministers Friday, but Jason Hale, a former MLA (2012-15) and rancher, remains as the province’s senior ag bureaucrat, a position he’s held since last October.

Among other cabinet posts of interest to farmers, former municipal affairs minister Rebecca Schulz becomes minister of environment and protected areas; Matt Jones, former minister for affordability and utilities, becomes minister of jobs, economy and trade; and Devin Dreeshen, a former ag minister, remains in his pre-election portfolio as minister of transportation and economic corridors. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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McCain Foods announced Monday it will put up $600 million to build two new production lines for frozen french fries and potato specialty goods at its Coaldale plant at Chin, Alta., about 25 km east of Lethbridge.

The Toronto-based company said it expects to start construction “later this year,” but hasn’t yet given a timeline for the project’s completion.

McCain did say that once fully operational, the Coaldale expansion will require another 260 hourly and salaried employees, more than doubling its current workforce there to 485.

McCain Foods CEO Max Koeune described the $600 million outlay as the “largest global investment in our 65-year history… underscoring our commitment to the future of agriculture and innovation in Canada.”

The company said the expansion will also follow best practices in line with its previously announced goal of cutting its worldwide greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the 2020s.

Thus, McCain said, the Coaldale plant expansion will include wind turbines and solar panels to provide “100 per cent renewable electricity.”

Biogas from the plant’s wastewater treatment will be run back to its steam boilers to offset the plant’s use of natural gas, and a water recycling system will also be put in place to reclaim potable water for processing, McCain added.

McCain’s Coaldale plant was first built in 2000, focused at the time on french fries for markets in the Eastern Hemisphere. The plant underwent a relatively smaller expansion in 2017 that boosted its capacity by an estimated 15 per cent.

McCain on Monday didn’t put a number on how much more potato production it will need to supply the plant once the expansion is online.

A McCain representative did say via email the new expansion “will bolster our existing relationships with our farmers and require us to build new farmer partnerships along the way to meet requirements.”

According to Statistics Canada, Alberta’s potato growers produced 26.81 million hundredweight (cwt) of potatoes on 71,325 harvested acres in 2022, putting it just out ahead of both Prince Edward Island and Manitoba in terms of total annual yield by province.

Southern Alberta’s potatoes go mainly to french fries and other frozen potato goods, processed in that region by Lamb Weston and Cavendish Farms as well as McCain for domestic and export markets.

The region is also home to two major potato chip processing plants, operated by Old Dutch and Pepsico-Frito Lay. Another snack food maker, Super-Pufft, announced plans last year for an Alberta potato chip plant at Airdrie.

Potato crops in Alberta are grown under irrigation, which today covers about 1.8 million acres of the province’s farmland.

Another 230,000 acres are to be added through a $933 million infrastructure project announced in 2021 to be financed by the province, the Canada Infrastructure Bank and 10 participating irrigation districts. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

UPDATE, March 14: Article updated to include comment from McCain representative.

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In Monterey County along the state’s central coast, communities near the still-rising Salinas River were under an evacuation order, as authorities warned that the cresting waterway could cut off homes and businesses from essential services.

As many as 19 people have been killed in the storms, including two deaths announced on Wednesday — one person found dead in a submerged car in Sonoma County north of San Francisco, and another who was pulled from the American River in El Dorado County on Jan. 3.

A five-year-old boy swept away in San Luis Obispo County had still not been found by Wednesday evening.

At least two more storm systems were set to pound California and the Pacific Northwest starting Friday and over the weekend, the National Weather Service said, including another atmospheric river, systems of dense moisture funneled into California from the tropical Pacific. The state has already been hit with seven such weather systems over the past two weeks.

Precipitation from the storms will fall as rain along the coast and snow in the Sierra Nevada and other mountain ranges, the National Weather Service said.

Cut off from services

In Monterey County, water from prior storms continued to swell the Salinas River, officials said. Some residents of the Monterey Peninsula and parts of the Salinas area could be cut off from other communities for as many as three days as roads flood.

“My husband went and got some provisions, just things we needed, so if we’re going to be here two to three days or however long we may be stranded, we’re good to go,” said Diane Souza, a retired office manager who decided to ride out the storm in the community of Spreckels near the river.

The couple put sandbags around their garage, which sits lower than the rest of the house, and put together a bag with emergency items in case they need to flee.

Not far away, the muddy Salinas River flowed at a steady pace, widening and encroaching on nearby trees. The tops of fences could be seen just above the rising water.

Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto said her officers had gone door-to-door in communities affected by evacuation orders, urging people to leave. She said the river was expected to hit flood stage by 11 p.m. Thursday night and remain high through the weekend.

Dozens of roadways across the state were made impassable by mudslides and snow as the state’s department of transportation urged drivers to stay off impacted roads until crews could clear the way.

In the state capital of Sacramento, crews continued to clear fallen trees and restore power on Thursday, aiming to complete as much of the work as possible before rains begin again on Friday.

The heavy rains have eased California’s historic drought but not ended it, the U.S. Drought Monitor showed Thursday. The state is no longer considered to be in extreme drought or exceptional drought, the two worst categories, but much of the state is still considered to be experiencing moderate or severe drought conditions.

Even with more atmospheric rivers in the immediate forecast, the state’s water system will remained strained in coming years without new infrastructure to capture more storm water, restore flood plains and recycle wastewater.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sharon Bernstein; additional reporting by Nathan Frandino.

Explainer: Why weeks of rain in California will not end historic drought

By Daniel Trotta

Reuters — California has been deluged since Dec. 26 by seven atmospheric rivers that have dumped up to 76 cm of rain over some areas, but the drought that has gripped the western U.S. remains far from over.

Virtually none of the storms has reached the Colorado River basin, which means the river that provides drinking water to 40 million people in seven states will continue to be endangered.

Even with more atmospheric rivers in the immediate forecast, and larger and more frequent ones predicted in the future, California cannot solve its long-term water crisis without major infrastructure investments to capture more storm water, restore flood plains and recycle wastewater.

Meanwhile, California’s US$50 billion agricultural industry continues to consume 80 per cent of the state’s supply.

Weather whiplash

Climate change means climate extremes. As California experiences more severe droughts and heat waves, its occasional wet years are expected to be excessively rainy. But the state’s water infrastructure, mostly built in the 20th century when the population was barely half of today’s 40 million, is ill-equipped for the new situation.

On Dec. 14, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a drought emergency for all 19 million people in the region. A few weeks later, the state was underwater with major flooding.

Despite a deluge that by one estimate has been expected to dump more than 80 trillion litres, the state’s major reservoirs remain well below their historic average. The largest reservoirs, at Shasta and Oroville, are still at 42 and 47 per cent of capacity, according to state data.

The shortfall underscores the severity of the drought. A report published in the journal Nature last year found 2000 to 2021 to be the driest 22-year period for southwestern North America in at least 1,200 years.

Infrastructure deficit

The state’s infrastructure, largely a network of cement canals, lacks the capacity to capture excess stormwater.

Irrigation and flood control projects were largely designed to convey water as quickly as possible in straight lines. That deprives flood plains of water taking a natural meandering path that would better protect adjacent cities from floods while also helping recharge the aquifer below.

With temperatures rising, snowpack in the mountains is melting more rapidly each spring, and the state lacks enough storage capacity to conserve the runoff.

California Governor Gavin Newsom plans to ramp up infrastructure spending, including US$8.6 billion budgeted for drought and flood management next year. Billions more are available under a major U.S. infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden in 2021.

But until that money is converted to projects, excess stormwater will continue to drain into the Pacific Ocean.

Colorado River under stress

Arid southern California relies on two external sources to slake its thirst: aqueous northern California, through massive state and federal conveyance systems; and the Colorado River, under a century-old compact that assigns its water to seven states, with California receiving the largest allotment.

But the compact was written after an unusually wet period, assigning the states more water than the river can now provide. Even as the Colorado River basin faces its own drought, and the atmospheric rivers provide no relief, the Colorado River suffers more from overuse than from a lack of precipitation.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has warned the seven states in the compact — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — that they must negotiate a new agreement to reduce consumption 15-30 per cent by Jan. 31 or else face mandatory cuts imposed by the federal government.

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Chosen by Alberta’s governing United Conservatives (UCP) on Oct. 6 to replace outgoing premier Jason Kenney, Smith on Friday announced Kenney’s incumbent minister of agriculture, forestry and rural economic development, Nate Horner, as her new minister of agriculture and irrigation.

Horner tweeted Friday that he “look(s) forward to building on our government’s historic investment of nearly $1 billion in irrigation infrastructure” and to “supporting an ag sector that’s driving economic growth and job creation.”

Smith, in a release Friday, said the new cabinet is “committed to standing up for Albertans, growing our economy and addressing affordability.”

A cow-calf rancher before entering politics and the MLA for the south-central constituency of Drumheller-Stettler since 2019, Horner had served in the ag and forestry file since last November.

The provincial forestry file was merged into the agriculture ministry by then-premier Rachel Notley’s New Democrats at the start of their term in government in 2015.

Smith’s shuffle moves that file to a new ministry of forestry, parks and tourism, to be led by Central Peace-Notley UCP MLA Todd Loewen, a farmer and former Wildrose MLA who ran against Smith and others for the UCP leadership earlier this month.

Smith on Friday also named Glenn van Dijken, a farmer and the MLA for what’s now Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock since 2015, as her parliamentary secretary for agrifood development.

Van Dijken is well known in Alberta agriculture circles; he and his wife Barb were named Alberta’s Outstanding Young Farmers in 2001 and he later served as a co-chair for the national Outstanding Young Farmer program. He was also a founding member and director of the Western Hog Exchange.

Among other cabinet appointments of interest to Alberta farmers, former energy minister Sonya Savage becomes minister of environment and protected areas; Devin Dreeshen, who Horner replaced last year as ag and forestry minister, returns to cabinet as minister for transportation and economic corridors; and Rebecca Schulz, formerly minister for children’s services, moves to the municipal affairs file.

In this week’s other provincial cabinet shuffle, returning Quebec Premier Francois Legault has re-appointed Andre Lamontagne as his minister of agriculture, fisheries and food and as minister responsible for the Centre-du-Quebec region. Legault’s Coalition avenir Quebec (CAQ) was re-elected to government on Oct. 3.

Among other Quebec cabinet appointments of interest to farmers, Benoit Charette returns as minister for the environment, climate change and parks and wildlife; Maite Blanchette Vezina becomes minister for natural resources and forestry; and Genevieve Guilbault, formerly minister for public security, moves to the transport portfolio and also remains deputy premier. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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