Water injection

[cakadu]

Irrigation costs the taxpayers a lot of money and it is a matter of return on the investment that is being made. Our irrigation methods are not the most efficient use of the available water. Why can't we adopt better methods for irrigation? Terracing is pretty much out of the question down in all that flat land, but has anyone ever tried drip irrigation? Puts the water where it belongs - down by the roots - and not being broadcast all over the place. 30% of that water evaporates before it ever hits the ground and while it remains in the hydrological cycle, it is lost for it's intended purpose, which is the crops.

What about the fact that we continue to try and force the land to do what it is not meant to do? There is no doubt that all of Alberta deserves to have it's advantages.

Just because the Red Deer river is not yet totally allocated, does that mean we have to allocate it to the limit? What about saving for the future? Water is the one thing that there isn't any more of. In fact, not one new drop of water has been created since time began.

With respect to the Balzac project, it has been put on hold and the time period for submitting objections has been extended to at least November 30th because there wasn't sufficient time and/or notice given for discussion.

I would think that the other problem that the complex would have is finding labour to work on it, let alone finding staff once it is up and running.

[GreenValley]

grassfarmer, just learn that 1500m3 per day is close to around 330,000 gal/day for 2 years and start to recycle water in year after, about 500m3 or 111,000 gal/day. Someone saying should be no problem in this valley because we in valley area of which water flow down to valley. In my farm groundwater static level is somewhat 23 feet from ground. Don't think even will effect 1 foot drop because of rainfall or snow will continue downward toward to valley. BS.
Some say would be happy to have lower water static ie: low land swamp would be better if proposed water injection in use. agree what cowman say the company are after cook the books, in fews later and sell off higher shares make CEO richer. Hope the owner has water right license and sell the water to company maker farmer richer.

[grassfarmer]

greenvalley, there are a number of us concerned about this proposal and we will be going to the stakeholders meeting in Rimbey on Thursday night, 7pm at seniors drop in centre. Get some neighbours together and maybe together we can stop this ridiculous proposal.

[cowman]

grassfarmer: Good luck on getting some sanity into this thing! These water injection deals are completely asinine and are among the stupidest things the oil patch does!
Nothing but pure greed!

[coppertop]

water injection bothers me a lot more than irrigation does. Good luck grassfarmer !!

[GreenValley]

Thanks, possible see there tomorrow.

[coppertop]

I would encourage everyone of you that feel the same way grassfarmer does, and can possibly be at the meeting, to do so. 100 people will get more media attention and likely do more good than a few trying very hard to make a difference.

[grassfarmer]

Things are moving ahead with our opposition to the proposal. We have been in contact with various individuals and organisations we can ally with and there is wide support that this can and should be stopped. We had a meeting today with a journalist from Quebec who was looking to find out about the oil industry vs land owner rights in Alberta. He was flabbergasted at some of the stuff that goes on here!
Tomorrow's meeting won't achieve much but we hope to have a rep from the company concerned come to answer questions that will be raised. Our objective here will be simply to force the issue and ensure that a full public discussion in a town hall setting will take place at a later date. For now we will concentrate on getting all the close by neighbours to sign form letters to submit to Alberta Environment expressing their opposition.
It's interesting when you do a little digging but the oil company involved is Chamaelo which bought out Capstone who had the controversy trying to pump water out of the Red Deer river at Innisfail for a similar project. Only problem is when you contact Chamaelo you get through to Kereco who have bought out Chamaelo. So why is the application being made by a company no longer in business?
A couple of people have been surprised at this proposal as they thought there was a moretorium on fresh water injection under the Alberta "water for life strategy" (this may be the wrong title I'm using) Does anyone know about this?
The meeting tomorrow is in fact at 6.30pm not 7 as I stated earlier.

[coppertop]

grassfarmer, the 'water for life' strategy has not been fully implemented. My understanding is that the moratorium in place at this time is for water allocation out of the North Saskatchewan River, however, I may be wrong. That information came from one of the individuals who is a member of the NSR watershed group that was recently formed. They may be a source of information for you, however, I am not sure who the contact people are. Agricultural Fieldmen across the province should know, I would suggest if you are contacting one of them, that either Steve Wylie from Wetaskiwin or Mark Cardinal from Parkland County may be your best source of info regarding watersheds from Central AB north.

[cowman]

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I thought grassfarmer said this was out of the aquifier...not the watershed?
In my opinion that is even dumber than taking it out of a river?
Grassfarmer: Have you contacted your MLA? Where is he on this whole goofy idea?
When those idiots south of Red Deer were trying to put that drivel about water injection being the real deal at least the County Reeve and the mayor of Red Deer stood up and said this is BS! Where in the hell is your MLA?

[coppertop]

I realize that this is out of an aquifer cowman, but I did mention watersheds because of water for life question.

[grassfarmer]

The MLA will be contacted in due course but of course being a PC he will approve of any activity the oil or gas sector might wish to do - kind of goes with the territory doesn't it? We have now spoken to many people involved in many organisations across the Province and there is a growing feeling that this can be stopped - it is such a large and outrageous project.

One argument that we are having with the hydrological "experts" is whether this injected water is lost to the hydrological cycle permanently - they argue that it isn't because burning oil in our vehicles releases water back into the atmosphere. So buy bigger trucks and we can produce extra water! That's got to be environmentally sound eh? The same expert hydrologist hadn't heard of the Oglala aquifer in the US which is rather worrying.

[cakadu]

The moratorium on water allocation is on the Bow River which is part of the South Saskatchewan River system.

The North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance has been around since 1997. The Battle River is in the process of forming an alliance and becoming a WPAC or Water Policy and Advisory Council.

[grassfarmer]

Good turnout at the meeting tonight and much opposition to the proposed waterflood project. We will be going for a town hall type debate on this for sure in the next couple of weeks. One producer at the meeting tonight claimed one of his wells went dry in September but came back a month later - this was exactly when the test pump on the proposed well took place. He knew nothing about the project or the test pumping until 2 weeks ago as he is about 5 miles away from the test are on higher land. Straight away that shows the inadequacy of only monitoring wells (anmd notifying landowners) in a 600 or 800m radius of the test bore.
The test pumping lasted 3 days with an 8 day recovery period and occurred immediately after an exceptionally heavy period of precipitation. Hardly enough proof that the aquafer would be good to produce 1500 cubic metres a day for 20 years.

[GreenValley]

See many company reps there, they blah, blah. Proposed project on that inject water is good for 8 years, by that time here area will be like in Wyoming or Montana that for sure. I have already write letter to Alberta Environment in Red Deer.