Milk River Watershed Council to host science forum in December

By Tim Kalinowski on November 30, 2017.

tkalinowski@medicinehatnews.com @MHNTimKal

The Milk River Watershed Council of Canada will be holding its first ever science forum Dec. 5 to discuss challenges facing the river basin, and to highlight local efforts to protect biodiversity and successfully manage usage pressures.

The Milk River basin has been hit particularly hard by drought the past two years, says MRWCC executive director Tim Romanow, and now international politics has aggravated those pressures.

“Alberta water users have until this past summer been able use Montana water during the late summer months in a trade off for Alberta water earlier in the spring time from the St. Mary’s diversion,” explains Romanow. “That letter of intent was pulled on us at the beginning of August (by our U.S. partners); so a lot of our water users were told July 20 they were going to be shut off from water. That impacted almost 7,600 acres of irrigation at the least opportune time.”

According to Romanow, the ending of this co-usage agreement has brought new challenges to local water users in conserving this valuable resource, but has also created new opportunities for dialogue on ongoing conservation efforts and good stewardship.

“That’s major challenge for us going forward, and one of our priorities is to try to find common sense solutions which can make a positive impact in terms of water management,” confirms Romanow. “It’s a simple fact. We’re going to have to do more with less over the next coming decades. Precision agriculture and irrigation efficiencies are improving to the extent we are meeting that challenge, but this is a finite resource and we are facing more challenges with the changing climate. Essentially, we have a limited resource and we have to be sure we are making the best decisions possible.”

Romanow is hopeful the upcoming science forum will increase focus on these efforts, and help local users get a stronger sense of the latest research being done along these lines.

“We wanted to bridge the gap between the research community and our local communities, and let people know what is actually happening out there,” he says. “And make sure they are engaged and have an opportunity to have their say in how things are managed … This forum is a great opportunity to, rather then having that science being a dust collector for someone’s graduate studies project, allow us to make sure that information is communicated back to the community.”

For more information on the upcoming Milk River Watershed Council of Canada’s science forum call Mary at 403-647-3808.