Folks,
Below is the beginning of the story. It was copied from the Facebook Post above.
More info to come!
Don
Prairie Creek is a well known and well loved trout fishery in Clearwater County Alberta. Brookies, the occasional Bull, Rocky Mountain Whites and even a few Northern Pike are part of the charm of this little stream but the real stars of the show are for many anglers the Browns.
A very important spawning site for the Browns lies about 2 km downstream of the most western bridge on Prairie Creek Road. The spawning water is protected water for obvious reasons. On December 30 2021, temporary water diversion from Prairie began per permit number 00480667 issued on December 29. The diverted water was put into two massive holding tanks 1.5 km east of the bridge. The diverted water is still sitting there. Frozen and useless as far as I can tell.
To be clear: a permit was granted to divert water from a SMALL stream at a time when the flow is at its lowest and at a place only 2 km above essential spawning habitat AND then the water was not even used.
Barely 2 km west of the Prairie Creek diversion another frac diversion was underway at the same time. They pulled their water from the Ram and pumped and heated it about 40 km to where it was needed. Expensive, I’m sure, and not destructive to spawning habitat, I am also sure.
The Surface Water Allocation Directive restricts any diversion to a maximum of 5% of the flow. In other words, 95% off the flow must remain in the stream. The permit issued to Orlen Upstream Canada was for 0.05 m/sec. That would comply with the SWAD if the Prairie flow is 1 m/sec. But Prairie’s flow is not 1 m/sec.
Don Andersen, Director Central Alberta Chapter of Trout Unlimited, calculated the actual flow to be 0.606 m/sec by using the methodology SWAD requires for such calculations. I’ll provide all the numbers in a subsequent post.
Given a flow of 0.606 and the 95% retention requirement, Orlen’s diversion should have been limited to 0.017 m/sec.
Any diversion from a stream as small as Prairie Creek might be environmentally irresponsible. This diversion, 3 times greater than what is permitted under SWAD, could be environmentally catastrophic for the spawning grounds.
Why was Orlen permitted to divert from Prairie when another operation diverted from the substantially larger Ram?
Why was the Orlen Upstream Canada permit for 300% more water than SWAD allows?
Why on earth is any diversion allowed on a stream as small as Prairie, in a place where critical habitat is put into extreme jeopardy at a time when the environmental damage is assured to be at its worst?
I’ll update in a few days. In the meantime, please ask the Minister of Environment and Parks, House Leader Nixon, and Minister of Energy, Deputy House Leader Savage to look into this fiasco. What caused this foul up and what will they do to endure it does not happen again.
The West Slopes are laced with little trout streams like Prairie. And much of the same area is peppered with wells that need water. I think we should try to make sure that the needed water is made available in a responsible way, not a foolhardy way. What do you think?
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