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Legault: We must do more to protect our water

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By Stephen Legault

Right now, in the grip of a cold winter, when nearly every body of water in the province in frozen, it is funny to be thinking about Alberta’s headwaters.

These waters, which we are skating on at the moment in the Bow Valley, feed rivers such as the Bow, which in turn flow out of more than 80 per cent of the province’s taps. Yet near these frozen rinks, you don’t have to look too far to see signs of life. Tiny creeks and rivulets, warmed by geothermal activity, still burble and flow between banks of fresh snow.

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There is no better time to talk about what protecting this province’s water really means. In the final days of the fall’s legislative session, Cam Westhead, NDP MLA for Banff-Cochrane, introduced a private member’s motion asking the province to take action to conserve Alberta’s headwaters. Motion 511 urged the government to increase its efforts to conserve and manage public lands in our headwater regions, increasing downstream water security for all Albertans.

The motion passed and Albertans should congratulate Westhead for authoring such a bold statement. Despite member motions being non-binding, we hope the government pays attention. The province has a long history of falling short in our efforts to safeguard the mountains and foothills that produce more than 80 per cent of Alberta’s water.

Spring Creek, near the Bow River in Canmore, is seen in the grip of a cold winter.
Spring Creek, near the Bow River in Canmore, is seen in the grip of a cold winter. Photo by Stephen Legault /Calgary

 While reaches of the Kananaskis and Elbow river watersheds were protected when Peter Lougheed created Kananaskis Country, others — the Ghost, Oldman, Crowsnest and Castle — were not. Fish and wildlife habitats were destroyed by clearcut logging and off-highway vehicle use, and once clear water became muddied, putting the water supply for major cities at risk.

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The NDP government has shown early signs of hope for protecting our water. Shortly after taking office, Environment Minister Shannon Phillips took steps to protect southern Alberta’s Castle watershed, following up on NDP election promises.

Clearcut logging was halted, preventing streams from muddying and flooding, as well as protecting the habitat of endangered species such as westslope cutthroat trout. Use of off-highway vehicles in this area continues and must be eliminated to protect watersheds and the integrity of our parks.

Alberta has an unfortunate legacy of talking big about watershed conservation, while thinking small. Here are a few ways to walk the talk:

  • Stop clearcut logging from the Ghost River all the way south to the Montana border. Small-scale community-based logging is appropriate, but the industrial logging occurring there now affects Calgary and Lethbridge’s water quality and amplifies the risk of flooding, drought and the impacts of climate change.
  • Create new provincial parks. Alberta has committed to the international goal of protecting 17 per cent of its landscapes by 2020. Protecting the foothills from new roads, off-highway vehicle use, coal mining and clearcut logging will go a long way to meeting that goal while protecting Alberta’s water supply.
  • Focus on the economic opportunities watershed protection and parks provide. Properly planned parks are powerful economic engines for growth. They provide opportunities for new jobs and business development, while preserving the natural values Albertans feel strongly about. Studies in the western United States show regions with protected public lands and watersheds experience more than five times greater economic growth than those without protection.
  • Rename the Forestry Trunk Road. Just as the Cowboy Trail has encouraged people to visit areas south of Calgary, renaming the gravel road connecting Cochrane to Hinton the Headwaters Trunk Road could do the same for the scenic areas near our headwaters and emphasis the true value of our Eastern Slopes forests: watershed protection.

For more information visit www.loveyourheadwaters.net

Stephen Legault is the author of 13 books, most recently Earth and Sky: Photographs and Stories from Montana and Alberta. He is program director for the Crown, Alberta and Northwest Territories for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

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