How much are willing to pay for a gallon of water

[forage]

The provincial government of Alberta is asking that very question. I fiqure my cattle are consuming approx. 12 gallons per day. Even at 50 cents a gallon I could not afford to even stay in business, would have to work the entire year off the farm to make ends meet. This is coming down the pipe as we speak.

[smcgrath76]

Perhaps as stewards of the land and the
watersheds, the question we should be
asking government is "how much are they
willing to pay for a gallon of water?"

[grassfarmer]

Where are they asking the question? hopefully
not at one of their "listening sessions". We tell
them it's falling on our land so it's our water not
theirs - and Ted Morton hears us say "we'd like
to pay $5 a gallon for his water".

[ASRG]

At one time surface water actually did belong to the landowner. I believe it was in 1986 the province decided they owned it! They always owned the groundwater.
Prior to that "little theft" the landowner could actually sell surface water from sloughs/dugouts etc. After that date you could only sell "access" to that water.
Under bill 24 (carbon capture) the government owns all "pore space" which is defined as any space that is, or was, occupied by a liquid or mineral......so I suppose a dugout/slough could be called a "pore space" and therefore the government not only owns the water but the surrounding "pore space"!
Under bill 24 a "pore space" was first of all classified as a "mineral" under the Mines Act (I know insane...but that is what they did) and therefore the government must have access to "their mineral"!
Also under Bill 24 the government gave themselves the right to "evaluate the formation for possible C02 sequestration" through seismic exploration? This is an incredible theft of property rights few people know about?
When an oil or gas company wanted to do seismic on your land, you had the right to refuse and they had no recourse. Seismic for C02 sequestration is subject to a right of entry order. You must let them in.
We have requested the details of all this entails from the farmers advocate office, but have not had our questions answered at this time.
We suspect compensation will be set much lower than what O & G companies were negotiating and we suspect the seismic information will be sold to energy companies as well!
Also because C02 sequestration is for "the public good" compensation will not be challengeable at the Surface Rights Board or the Land Compensation Board!
Bill 24 was about so much more than saving the world from the evil C02!
Incidently if you went through the "water license" thing in 2001 and registered your water wells, the licenses can be cancelled by the government whenever they want, under Bill 36 the Land Stewardship Act.

[forage]

Grassfarmer, the same section of environment that created the water well registery is now trying to establish a $/gallon of water that can be used for domestic and ag useage.The theory is once the price is established the NAPA free trade agreement will kickin and Alberta can then export water to the United States.
Many ranchers register their wells thinking they were protecting the first in time rights, but the real propuse behind the registery was to determine the total number of chickens,hogs,sheep, cows they were watering. The next step is coming sooner than we think like I mentioned in another thread I know of a person working for dept. of environment and the group designing this new protocol has been working on the reworking of the Water Act for years.