Western Irrigation District Memories – Tony and Anne Heuver

By John Godsman Times Contributor

Tony’s and Anne’s families originated in Holland, where they were both born and attended school. Tony studied horticulture and Anne studied home economics.
In 1959, Tony came to Alberta to work at a farm, returning frequently to Holland. On one of the trips in fall 1962, he met Anne, and they were married in Holland in February 1964. They have twin boys, Marcel and Eric, and two girls Anita and Patricia. Anita and Eric continue the family’s involvement with irrigation, owning and operating Eagle Lake Nurseries, and Eagle Lake Professional Landscape Supply, respectively.
After their wedding in 1964, Tony and Anne moved to Calgary where Tony and his brother Henry ran Foothills Landscaping Ltd. The company expanded to Strathmore where they purchased raw land and began growing sod for the landscape business. They seeded and grew some of the best lawn grasses available in the surrounding area in the mid-1960s, which included Kentucky blue grass and fescue blends.
Initially, water was accessed from Eagle Lake, until a connection was made to the Western Irrigation District’s (WID) north A canal system, which passes about 1.5 miles north of the nursery. For improved water quality, a ditch was built to run water by gravity from the canal to just north of the Trans-Canada Highway, where this water flowed into a small creek, then filled the large holding pond at the nursery. The access to reliable and good water allowed for the expansion of production from sod to include trees and shrubs.
The original irrigation equipment used was a hand-move system with later upgrades to wheel-move systems, two of which are still in use today.
In the 1980s, additional land in the Namaka area was purchased along with irrigation rights, and pivot irrigation systems were installed for sod production. Over the years, the nursery fields were also updated from hand-move systems to drip irrigation systems. The use of drip irrigation, which can be over 90 per cent efficient, led to a huge reduction in the amount of water required to grow trees, and improvements to their quality.
The Heuvers believe the future of agriculture in the WID greatly depends on the availability of enough water of high quality. There are ever-increasing demands for the waters of the Bow River. It is vital this valuable resource is well managed, and new technologies are developed and used to maximize the agricultural potential of all the lands in the Western Irrigation District.