Athabasca area water resources are at risk of being taken and sold out of country, according to Arlene Kwasniak, a professor at the University of Calgary Faculties of Law and Environmental Design.
Crooked Creek Conservancy Society of Athabasca (CCCSA) sponsored Water Rights, Water Wrongs, a two-speaker talk on water at Athabasca University last Wednesday that included Kwasniak.
“I compared the water trading rules under the Alberta legislation with that of the Australian legislation, because Australia’s water market is considerably more active than the Alberta water market,” Kwasniak explained. “I looked at what might be some of the consequences if Alberta were to make water trading easier.”
Currently in Alberta, water trading is a long and involved process.
“It is a highly regulated process that can take several months, even years to complete,” she explained. “You can only have a water transfer in Alberta if the cabinet has approved it or if there is an approved water management plan under the Water Act that allows for water transfers.”
Kwasniak explained in some people’s eyes, water is a commodity because it is being traded.
CCCSA chair Rosemary Neaves introduced Kwasniak by saying water needs to be protected.
“We need to treat Mother Earth with respect, rather than (as) a never-ending commodity to be exploited,” Neaves said. “Each of us is a steward of our environment. How we protect our water now will have life-or-death consequences for your children and future generations.”
Kwasniak touched on the environmental concerns attached to water trading during her presentation.
“The (Alberta) government put in the potential 10-per-cent hold-back for conservation purposes to keep water in stream if anyone wanted to transfer their water right,” Kwasniak said. “There was a little something for the environment.”
However, Kwasniak explained the 10 per cent is not enough to help the environment.
“If we start commoditizing water, there will be other negative consequences as well,” she explained. “An example is stranding land without water.”
When land titles and water transfers are no longer connected, it can strand areas of land without water.
“If you have an irrigation license that attaches to land, and the farmer is in hard times and sells the water rights, there will be no water rights to that land,” she said. “Some say that is good, but the problem is that if you have a lot of this happening, you can compromise irrigation.”
In Australia, the negative effects are already visible.
“It can affect communities, and people can abandon communities because they no longer have jobs there; they are no longer farming,” she said. “When you have water trading, it is the right to take that water right and to sell it to someone else without transferring the land (to which) the water right pertains.”
Kwasniak explained that if people were unable to separate land from water trading, there would be no trading.
“If they were attached to the land, then you couldn’t trade the water right separately,” she said.
To gain a water right in Alberta, a person can go to the government and request it for a purpose that is recognized by law.
“In order to use any great quantity of water, you need to have a license from the government,” she said.
Even if licenses are carefully regulated, Kwasniak said treating water as a commodity in any way is problematic.
“There are lots of concerns about the water market,” she said. “The greatest one is that by making water a commodity or a good, what is going to happen is that under the trade agreements that we are party to, the North American Free Trade Agreement … what you are going to do is open up the possibility of water exports to other countries or have foreign interest come in and control our water supply.”
Currently, Alberta cannot export water outside of Canada.
“The worry is that if we start trading water rights, then someone from the United States can come into Alberta and say they have the right to take the water and take it back to the United States,” she explained. “That has been a concern that has been voiced about making water a commodity.”
Some argue that water cannot be a commodity if it is in its natural state in the river or lake.
“If all it takes is water to be transferred, then water is already a commodity,” she said. “In Alberta, we have a bit of a water market here already.”
After 1999, when the Water Act was passed, water rights could be separated from land in Alberta.
“The Athabasca area is part of Alberta, and so the water trades will apply to Athabasca as well as any other part of the province,” Kwasniak said.
Water licenses have been issued for the Athabasca River to Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries and to various oilsands companies.
