St. Mary’s River Irrigation District taking expansion plans to its members

By COLLIN GALLANT on January 16, 2021.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

More information about a major irrigation expansion program in southern Alberta is coming out as irrigation districts engage their members.

Details of major projects in the St. Mary’s River Irrigation district are still privy to members of the organization that includes areas near Medicine Hat.

Officials said that a general outline was mailed to its members on Friday of work previously said to include 26 separate modernizations and the one major reservoir expansion.

The News has also learned the Eastern Irrigation District will expand the Snake Lake Reservoir, between Brooks and Bassano near the Bow River, along with major pipeline projects in the north and southeast of the region.

Last fall, irrigators, the province and Ottawa announced the $800-million agreement that will fund reservoir expansion and capital upgrades in 14 districts in Alberta.

The federal program would lend half the money at 30-year terms and low rates to districts, which would provide 20 per cent outright and the remainder from a provincial grant.

However, few details were released as local authorities cited ongoing talks with landowners at project sites and confidentiality agreements between the parties until the deal was finalized.

That occurred in mid-December, according to the federal Canadian Infrastructure Bank, and now local districts are preparing to lay out the plan to members ahead of approval votes this spring.

The EID will hold an online information session for its members on Monday and Thursday. A previously set expansion vote in the fall was delayed when the deal was announced and administrators said they would increase acres on offer.

SMRID officials said a vote on its projects and expansion of acres would be held later in the year, but no further information was available.

According to the announcement in October, projects would include new storage along with new distribution pipelines to replace open canals – thereby reducing leakage and evaporation – to, in essence, make more water available for delivery.

The EID plebiscite asks members to approve increasing the expansion limit from 311,000 acres to 345,000, with the difference accounted for through water conservation efforts and a “significant” increase to Snake Lake storage.

It would increase storage there five fold to a total of 64,000 acre-feet.

Half the project’s $170-million budget would be financed in a loan from the CIB, another $51 million in a grant from province and the remaining $34 million from the EID.

The loan would be repaid through fees on expanded acres.

An in-person information meeting is scheduled for Jan. 25, should public health restrictions allow. The vote is set for Feb. 23.