A combination of less snow and spring rain in the upper reaches of the mountains and foothills has the North Saskatchewan river at its lowest levels since 2001.
“It’s in the very, very flow range for this time of year and it probably is roughly (similar in levels) to the natural decline in September or that time of year,” said Gordon Thompson, technical coordinator for the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance. From what he has heard, the snow pack in the mountains was low to begin with, and there were no spring floods to fill up the two dams on the river system, the Brazeau and Big Horn dams. While rain in the upper reaches is more critical to the river levels than rain in the local area, obviously, all of western Canada is seeing little rainfall, he notes.
“We’re in a drought. It’s basically a drought situation,” he said.
The North Saskatchewan river usually sees flow rates of 355 to 500 cubic metres per second. Currently, the rate is 152.
However, Thompson notes that this shouldn’t have any impact on drinking water supplies. He says the city of Edmonton draws three to four cubic metres per second, which is a small percentage of the water flow, and which is returned to the river by the time it reaches the river south of St. Paul and Elk Point, in the form of wastewater effluent.
He and officials with Alberta Environment say the North Saskatchewan river is big and can handle the lower levels, and the fluctuations levels seen from year to year.
“There’s no real issue in terms of flow in terms of supply of water for municipal use.”
As well, northern Alberta currently has “virtually no irrigation,” Thompson said, adding that if it did have the same irrigation systems as southern Alberta, using large flows from the river, the current low levels of the river could have a greater impact.
Other river systems that use irrigation are having to look at drought measures, he points out. Battle River is currently seeing extremely low levels, and has taken the step of stopping temporary licenses that would let companies take water out of the river.
Watershed alliances have been formed with the mandate of planning to achieve three main goals: protecting a safe, securing drinking supply, promoting healthy aquatic ecosystems, and providing reliable quality water for the economy.
In the North Saskatchewan watershed, drought has not been an issue generally speaking, and has not been a focus of the alliance’s planning work, says Thompson.
As for the effect of low water levels on aquatic life, Dwayne Latty, a fisheries biologist in Cold Lake, notes the North Saskatchewan river can fluctuate quite a bit in depth and flow. The fish that live there are adapted to these fluctuations within the course of the seasons and from year to year, he notes.
“They can find deep holes to wait out the low water periods,” he said.
If there were low water levels in spring, that can affect fish spawning, but he said he hasn’t collected data to see if this particular spring was worse than any other spring.
