Water, water everywhere

Published in Manitoba Farmer's Voice:
Water seems to be everywhere. In most parts of Manitoba, it’s readily available and potable with the turn of a tap handle.
We can see it all around in this province. We see it in the rivers and lakes that surround and please us. We see it flowing from irrigation systems on farms that grow our staples.
Water is abundant in Manitoba. No worries, right?
“I don’t think that’s correct,” says Rod McGinn, a geography professor at Brandon University, “If you look at the appropriation of water from the Assiniboine River, for example, it’s all used up.”
Well, not quite. The Assiniboine meets the water needs of Maple Leaf, Simplot, the City of Brandon, farmers, etc., with some left over. But there isn’t much room for expansion, or for coping in years of drought.
It’s important to distinguish between all the water we have in our rivers, lakes and aquifers on the one hand, and our renewable supply of water. The latter is far more important. It’s the amount of water replenished by precipitation every year.
Canada may have one-fifth of the world’s freshwater, but it has only 6.5 per cent of the renewable supply. That’s tied for third, with Indonesia, and well below the percentages for Russia (10) and world leader Brazil (12.4). And don’t forget that much of our water resources are located rather far from the population centres, factories and farms that need it.
As well, our renewable water supply isn’t highly reliable. For instance, the province’s southwest corner was dry this past summer and “is a particularly drought-prone area,” notes Steven Topping, executive director of regulatory and operational services at Manitoba Water Stewardship.
“Some water sources are vulnerable to overuse,” he adds. “Some aquifers are small and can go dry.”
Canada’s Prairie region is no stranger to droughts, which have historically occurred every 30 to 50 years with significant impacts on the agricultural sector. During the 1930s drought, for instance, the region produced 30 per cent less wheat and an enormous number of farms went belly-up.
Experts agree the use and distribution of water is shaping up to be the great environmental issue of the coming decades. Among Manitoba’s present and potential water concerns are the effects of global warming, amounts drawn in jurisdictions upstream from us, and what ramifications regional scarcities elsewhere on this continent might have for us.

Warmer, drier
Climatologists project significant warming for the next 50 years – more than 5 degrees Celsius in extra surface temperature for our part of the world.
That could mean a double whammy for Manitoba farmers. First, drought risks would increase while river flows decrease. Secondly, warmer summers would allow Saskatchewan farmers upstream from Manitoba to grow higher-priced crops that require more irrigation. Brandon University biology professor William Paton has neatly summarized that prospective predicament as “increased Saskatchewan consumption and decreased Manitoba supply.”
Water Stewardship’s Topping says the provincial Water Rights Act is especially pertinent in times of drought. The law has a “first in time, first in right” principle that gives priority to access based on seniority. As well, Topping notes, the Water Protection Act gives the government the power to declare a serious water shortage and order special measures.
But those are provincial laws. They don’t govern what happens in other jurisdictions. What happens when Manitoba’s interests conflict with Saskatchewan’s or North Dakota’s?
That’s where the Prairie Provinces Water Board (PPWB) and the International Red River Board (IRRB) come in. As it happens, Topping represents Manitoba on both boards.
The PPWB applies a Master Agreement on Apportionment to see that each province gets a fair share of the water supply. Half of all water going into the Hudson Bay drainage basin in Alberta must pass to Saskatchewan, and half of that water plus half of Saskatchewan-originating water must make its way into Manitoba, explains Topping.
The IIRB helps the International Joint Commission prevent and resolve transboundary disputes related to water quality and levels. Topping says it is presently examining the issue of apportionment, a matter the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 does not specifically deal with.
The provincial government isn’t oblivious to drought risks. “Manitoba has experienced droughts in the past, and there have been a lot of efforts or measures taken to hedge against droughts,” says Topping. As an example he points to the Shellmouth Reservoir, which serves the dual purpose of reducing flood risks in wet times and supplementing water flows in the province’s southwest in dry times.

Southern discomfort
Some parts of North America are considerably less fortunate than Manitoba when it comes to the wet stuff. Consider Arizona’s plight. Lower-than-average runoff to the Colorado River has become an annual occurrence in recent years, and Arizona gets one-third of its water needs from that river. And the state’s water needs will only grow as its population continues to grow steadily. It seems Arizona is headed toward a crisis point in water supply. Same with California, another state that draws much of its water from the Colorado.
This has raised worries that thirsty states will look to Canada for water, spurring bulk water exports from our lakes for their taps. Some say the U.S. could use the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to force the export of water.
In response to such concerns, Manitoba’s Water Resources Conservation Act makes it illegal to “sell or dispose of water to a person,” with certain exceptions that include containers of less than 25 litres and use of water in the operation of a vehicle. All of the exceptions explicitly relate to the use of water within the province.
But could NAFTA be used to circumvent Manitoba law in this case?
“There are potential problems,” says Owen Saunders of the University of Calgary’s Canadian Institute of Resources Law, “but I think they’re largely theoretical.”
Saunders says our water likely is safe so long as it’s not “commodified” – that is, sold as commodity. “Once it has been commodified, it then becomes a good under NAFTA and normal trade rules apply.”
He adds that selling water service, as municipalities do, does not amount to commodifying water because it’s the service and not the water being sold.
There’s also an outside chance, he says, that a company allowed to invest in the water sector in Canada could use NAFTA’s investment chapter to wedge its way into the system and garner the right to export water.