The Medicine Hat News reports, “Albertans can expect to…speak themselves in the future about an idea to regulate, reallocate or market water leases, Premier Alison Redford told reporters following a party fundraiser in Medicine Hat on Thursday night.”
Water markets?
Redford said, “Whether we move to market or not… it’s about what we do with respect to water for life and what we do with respect to a price on water. It’s not the way I think we should go, but it has to be part of what our new minister has to do with respect to consulting on this. There have been a lot of random comments on this. It’s something that I’m not supportive of, but it’s got to be a decision that we make as Albertans and quite frankly… I don’t think that we’ve had a full-fledged, open conversation about it.”
The article notes, “Her comments about water come on the heels of the this week’s decision to revoke a controversial request for proposals to turn 16,000 acres of grassland currently used for grazing cattle near Bow Island into irrigated farmland. Her government should not be seen to ‘railroad’ through such proposals, she said, especially when local bodies recommend against such moves, as the South Saskatchewan (River) Advisory Council did several years ago in its general recommendation about such land use.”
Consultation?
“(A) consultation (on the Bow Island proposal), she added, should be expanded to include an idea that launched last spring under her predecessor. Ed Stelmach’s Premier’s Council For Economic Strategy recommended the creation of a system to regulate the transfer of water rights in its final report last June.”
“The new Minister of the Environment and Water, Diana McQueen, will be tasked with the file, though it’s too early to say what a consultation process will look like or when it will happen. ‘I expect that she’s very committed on this’, said Redford. ‘The department has a new focus on this issue.'”
The Alberta legislature will sit for one-day on Monday then break until November 21.
Opposition
“Opponents say such a plan will commodify of a universally held resource. Others say the market already exists considering that a 2006 moratorium on new water leases on the South Saskatchewan means new developments have to barter or buy water.”
To read about Council of Canadians commentary on water markets in Alberta, please go to http://canadians.org/markets.
The Medicine Hat News article is at http://www.medicinehatnews.com/front-page-news/redford-wants-water-consultation-10212011.html.
