The oil and gas industry has escaped curbs on its water use or having to pay for water in Alberta’s new water strategy – for now.

But the energy sector and other Alberta industries may still face those measures as the plan unfolds. Every industrial sector that uses water – along with municipalities, individual consumers and government – will have to do their part to achieve the strategy’s target to reduce water consumption by 30 per cent in 10 years, said Alberta Environment Minister Lorne Taylor.

“I want to be very clear: we’re not just picking on one industry in this province,” Taylor said last week in unveiling the plan. “We’re talking about conservation across the board.”

Lorne Taylor

The plan outlines a wide range of initiatives, worth a total of $916 million in capital investment and operating funds, over the next 10 years.

The goal is to ensure Albertans have safe, secure drinking water; healthy aquatic ecosystems; and a reliable water supply to support provincial economic development.

Taylor has formed a new provincial advisory committee on water-use practice and policy to help implement the strategy. The committee, chaired by David Trew from Alberta Environment, includes representatives from provincial and municipal governments; the petroleum, agriculture and forest industries; environmental groups; and the public.

Taylor said the committee is scheduled to report to him by next March on what new limits, if any, are needed on water use by the oil and gas industry and other sectors.

During 18 months of consultations, Albertans expressed concerns about the oil and gas industry removing fresh surface and groundwater from the hydrological cycle by injecting it into deep wells to increase oil production.

However, Taylor said: “I can’t arbitrarily make industry targets when I don’t know what those industry targets should be.”

The plan doesn’t recommend charging the oil and gas industry or other sectors for the water they use, a step called for by some landowner groups.

Instead, the province will study the economic value of water, the costs of water-delivery systems, and whether putting a price on water would be effective in encouraging conservation.

“We have to determine economic value and true-cost accounting before we’d ever get into a price discussion,” Taylor said.

This economic evaluation is to be completed by 2007. David Pryce, vice-president of Western Canada operations for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), said water-assisted oil production contributed $700 million to the provincial economy in 2001.

The industry has been working for several years to conserve and reduce its use of fresh surface water and groundwater, said Pryce, a member of the new provincial advisory committee on water.

“We have made some great strides,” he said. “So we want to make sure that people recognize that effort as well when we’re talking about setting targets (for water conservation).”

Alberta Environment says the oil and gas industry is licensed to use about 180 million cubic metres a year of water, or 4.6 per cent of all water allocated in the province. In comparison, the agricultural irrigation sector receives about 4.2 billion cubic metres, or about 45 per cent. Municipalities are allocated one billion cubic metres, or about 11 per cent of the total.

Water diverted for enhanced oil recovery operations has declined from 88.7 million cubic metres in 1972 to 47.5 million cubic metres in 2001, Alberta Environment says.

The 2001 figure includes 37 million cubic metres of fresh water and 10.5 million of saline or brackish water.

Taylor said that the irrigation sector – like the oil and gas industry – has also improved its water-use efficiency.

The Eastern Irrigation District, between the Red Deer River and the Bow River, is expanding by 25,000 acres, while the St. Mary Irrigation District in southernmost Alberta has plans to expand by 20,000 acres.

Neither district will get more water, so each will have to achieve its expansion through more efficient use of water, Taylor said.

The province’s strategy will also look at ways to encourage all types of industry that require water to locate new operations near water sources, rather than pipe water from elsewhere.

The government recently changed the Water Act that allows water-licence holders to sell part of their allocations.

The new water strategy “is a first step in the right direction,” said Mary Griffiths, an environmental policy analyst for the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development who represents the environmental institute on the new provincial advisory committee on water.

Alberta’s target to cut water consumption by 30 per cent within 10 years is possible, considering the comparable or greater reduction in water demand that other countries, such as the Netherlands and the U.K., have achieved, Griffiths said. “It’s a very realistic target. And I would be very disappointed if we . . . didn’t exceed it.”

Griffiths said she favours putting some sort of financial value on water, through a tax or some other pricing mechanism.

She said she likes the government’s approach to develop the strategy over the next 10 years by working with local watershed management and stewardship groups in each of Alberta’s seven regional river basins, rather than by simply imposing province-wide restrictions.

This multi-stakeholder, consensus-based approach, pioneered by Alberta’s Clean Air Strategic Alliance, has reduced oil and gas industry flaring emissions by 62 per cent since 1996.

Some critics say the water strategy lacks new standards and regulations to better protect water and punish those who waste it.

Griffiths, however, said: “If you can get everybody recognizing the issues and working to resolve them together, I think in the long term you probably have a more satisfactory situation than just prescribed decisions.”