WID receives funding for infrastructure
By Janet Kanters, Editor
The Alberta government, Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) and the province’s irrigation districts are providing funding to assist Western Irrigation District (WID), and other Alberta irrigation districts, to modernize their irrigation infrastructures.
The $815 million in total will modernize irrigation district infrastructure and increase water storage capacity, creating up to 6,800 direct and indirect permanent jobs and up to 1,280 construction jobs.
According to Devin Dreeshen, Alberta’s Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, the investment is a partnership between Alberta’s government, the CIB and irrigation districts.
“This expansion will see hundreds of kilometres of pipelines built, contribute about $436 million annually to Alberta’s GDP, and create over 8,000 jobs,” he noted. “The more than 200,000 acres of new irrigated farmland created from this expansion is roughly a third of P.E.I.’s total farmland. Alberta started out and always will be an agriculture powerhouse.”
A government news release stated the signing of a memorandum of understanding amongst all parties and agreement in principle for the CIB to invest about $407.5 million in this project, to be paid back by the irrigation districts, represents an innovative approach to financing a unique asset class.
Projects focus on increasing water conveyance efficiency and allowing more acres to be irrigated with the same amount of water. Modernizing and building new irrigation infrastructure will increase irrigated acreage, increase primary crop production, improve water use efficiency, increase water storage capacity, enhance water security and provide flood protection to support long-term value-added processing activity.
The provincial government will contribute $244.5 million and the irrigation districts will contribute $163 million.
“With this collaboration, we will be able to improve service, expand irrigation and save water – sooner,” said Dan Shute, WID board chair. “We will expand irrigation while increasing water efficiency. And with the savings we gain by becoming more efficient, we can make the service we provide to our water users even more secure.
“This investment is happening in the Western Irrigation District’s 76th year of operations. Installing pipelines and modernizing canals with long lifespans will benefit future generations of Alberta food producers – and ensure the infrastructure required for stable and secure food production for many decades to come.”
Alberta has more than 1.7 million irrigated acres. The irrigation industry generates about $2.4 billion in annual labour income and supports about 56,000 jobs.
The eight irrigation districts participating in the investment include: Bow River Irrigation District, Eastern Irrigation District, Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District, Raymond Irrigation District, St. Mary River Irrigation District, Taber Irrigation District, United Irrigation District and Western Irrigation District.