The Government of Alberta has drafted a policy to deal with amendments to water licences in response to a request by the Eastern Irrigation District to amend its water licence a year ago. Water Matters and Ecojustice issued a press release to provide cautious support for the government's fairly restrictive draft policy to licence amendments but want to see the policy intent in legislation not only policy. Their support suggested the policy should remain strictly limited.

Read the press release

Read media stories from the Calgary Herald and TheRecord.com

In August 2007, the Eastern Irrigation District (EID) sought to modify its licence such that it would no longer be restricted to divert water for only irrigation. This amendment to its licences would have allowed the EID to effectively be the regulator of a very large amount of water—approximately 30 percent of the average annual flows of the Bow River—rather than the Government of Alberta, who manages Alberta's water in trust for the public.

Public debate arose over this proposal because it effectively proposed shifting responsibility from government overseeing a publicly managed resource to an irrigation district overseeing a privately managed resource. In response, the government put the EID proposal on hold in the fall of 2007. The draft policy was released this fall.

Water Matters and Ecojustice support the policy in principle but have noted that the brief one-page document still leaves room for broad interpretation. The draft policy does not ban all types of non-agricultural water licence amendments, but the proposed policy does significantly limit the amount of water that can be sold off to just two per cent of the original licence allocation. Water Matters and Ecojustice recently submitted comments to the Alberta Government asking for the language to be strengthened.