Don’t sell the water, Risks involved in creating an Alberta market

Don’t sell the water, Risks involved in creating an Alberta market by Suzy Thompson, October 11, 2012, Fast Forward Weekly
Water Matters, an Alberta-based non-governmental research and advocacy group, released its final report in a three-part series studying water issues in the province. Moving Waters examined options for Alberta to achieve the provincial government’s Water For Life goals, in which water will be available for the public, environment and industrial use on a long-term basis. Moving Waters authors Julia Ko and William F. Donahue studied the possibility of moving Alberta’s water management system away from the “First-In-Time, First-In-Right” process under which water licences are allocated now, to a water market. Water markets have been adopted in several American states, however, the report concludes the system brings risks. “Severe droughts elsewhere have forced governments to basically throw out old water management policies and spend billions of dollars on emergency measures to buy back water rights,” the authors write in reference to the $8.9 billion the Australian government was forced to pay for public water access rights during a drought in that country that ended in 2006. Water markets were also studied by Jeremy Schmidt for the Parkland Institute, a think-tank based in Edmonton, for its December 2011 report Alternative Water Futures in Alberta. Schmidt also determined that allocating water rights on an open market would be difficult to impose and run contrary to the government’s stated conservation and management goals.  [Emphasis added]