The St. Mary River Irrigation District heads into the fall in better shape than last year. A41 Cats/Dreamstime.com

By Jesse Gill

St. Mary River Irrigation District in better water situation heading into fall

Sep 3, 2024 | 6:36 PM

The final day for irrigation in the St. Mary River Irrigation District that spans across Southern Alberta will be Oct. 4, giving producers a few extra weeks of irrigation comparted to last year.

READ: MLA says Alberta water committee focused on future

Water shortages coming out of last summer’s drought and lack of snowpack and precipitation throughout the winter created the need for a water sharing plan in 2024.

Limiting irrigation available to those in the district to eight inches at the start of the season, later upped to nine inches thanks to significant rainfalls in May and into June.

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This is lower than normal allocation given by the irrigation district in the 15 to 16 inch range.

General Manager David Westwood said, that full allocation, wasn’t used by most of the cereal crop growers, with the unused allocation able to be now used by producers of more water dependant crops like potatoes and sugar beats.

Westwood is happy to see their water reservoirs start to come back.

“We feel we’re going to be in a better situation storage by far than we were at the end of last season,” Westwood said.

“We’re hoping that we’re going to get through this drought period. We’re still under a water sharing agreement here in the south, but we’re hopefully, if we have a good snowpack, we’ll get that back to, more of a regular allocation come next season if everything goes well,” he added.

“At least we’ll have better storage to end the season off and go into the winter with.”

Westwood said overall he is happy with how the season has played out considering the circumstance, and he’s heard positive feedback on crops from producers across the region.