Linear Features in the Oldman Watershed – Risk and Necessity

(Editor's note: OWC's Planning Manager, Connie Simmons, weighs in about a little understood aspect of watershed management and health. As always, we welcome your comments and your submissions as guest bloggers!)

What do linear features – that is all roads, seismic lines, powerlines, pipelines, railroads, cut lines, and recreation trails  - have to do with a healthy watershed? 

Well, in a nutshell, too many of these

linear features

(LF) - where they are placed, and how are they are used - can be a

risk to watershed health.  And a risk to watershed health is a risk to our water quality, quantity and continued health of ecosystems that support us all.  

All that water coming out of the sky in the form of rain or snow eventually runs over the watershed lands, along ditches, through culverts, on and through clear-cuts, quad trails, roads and power-line right of ways – and flows into the Oldman River system.   Depending on how and where they are developed and the way they are used, LF proliferation is shown to have adverse impacts on water hydrology - affecting ground water re-charge and surface run-off, erosion and sedimentation in streams, impacts on aquatic ecosystem health (fish and benthic invertebrates (water bugs) and extra cost to public water utilities to address water quality needs for our growing communities. 

Necessity

We Albertans have been very busy with building communities, and infrastructure that supports the people who live, work and play in this region of Alberta. All of this development has depended on the building and maintaining of linear features. 

For every need to develop these LF, we have constructed and used these features without too much thought on how all of this cumulatively impacts the foundation of a healthy functioning watershed.  While this development was accepted as a necessity for economic, social and cultural well-being, scientific assessments and the concerns of the local communities have flagged the proliferation of LF and intensity/type of their use as a problem.  

This has raised the need to do something about this growing concern for watershed health, particularly in the

headwaters

area of the Oldman River system.       

Risk

The headwaters of the Oldman watershed provide approximately 90% of the water for the Oldman River – it is a critical water tower for southwestern Alberta.  

Linear feature proliferation has been evaluated in the headwaters region, and 77% of the sub-watersheds in the headwaters are at moderate to high risk and pressure from this kind of development.  

See the Headwaters Indicator Report.

Oldman headwaters area with all linear features (ESRD 2012 data)

The OWC completed the Headwaters Action Plan 2013-14 (HAP) in early 2014.  The HAP was developed by the multi-stakeholder Partnership Advisory Network, and revised and completed after a thorough public review process.  

The plan addresses the need to properly manage the increase and use of LF,  and rollback and reclaim LF where there is moderate to high risk to water and watershed health.  

The HAP is a good start, but it is only a plan.  We need to

ACT

on it. 

(For more information see the ‘What We Heard’ public review of the HAP at: 

http://oldmanbasin.org/files/1613/9757/4313/Headwaters_What_we_Heard_Report_web.pdf

The

Headwaters Action Plan Summary Report

will soon on the website. If you would like a PDF of the report, please email

shannon@oldmanbasin.org

The OWC’s Headwaters Action Plan provided recommendations and advice to the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP), and to an important sub-initiative of the SSRP - the Linear Footprint Management Plan (LFMP).   

Currently, the LFMP is integrating multiple data and information sources to analyze, plan and eventually implement actions that address LF proliferation in the Oldman headwaters and elsewhere in the SSRP region. 

The OWC’s

Headwaters Action Team

is keen to understand, and where possible assist with this important work as it is a key priority of the Headwaters Action Plan – and we have made progress with this endeavor by recent completion of the

‘Linear Features Classification’ project

in the

Dutch Creek sub-watershed in the Oldman headwaters.  

Historically, Dutch Creek has been mined, logged, grazed and has multiple LF to attest to this history.  The majority of LF continue to be used for other purposes than their original use, and the intensity and type of this use needs to be managed to safeguard key water/watershed values.

Dutch Creek Watershed Linear Features Classification Project – December 2014

Risk to watershed health by linear feature proliferation in the Dutch Creek sub-watershed is indicative of what is going on most of the Oldman headwaters.  

It is a sobering thought.   The risk to water and watershed health that supports all who live and work downstream needs careful attention, and that includes education and social willingness to address the issues that go along with the proliferation and intensity of use of linear features.      

Trade-offs

It is hard for Albertans to seriously consider trade-offs when it comes to protecting and/or using resource rich areas. The iconic wild west has been a place of opportunity, and we have taken advantage of resource richness for over a century.  

However, as we reach limits to how much can be done on the landscape without compromising future opportunities and losing or negatively impacting important headwaters values (water quality; water quantity, species at risk for instance) we need greater wisdom and community understanding of how we work and play in this unique and special place.  Is water and watershed health important?  

The OWC has heard a resounding “YES” to this question.  It is kind of a no-brainer.  

However, the hard work isn’t done through just talking and planning, it is done by carefully assessing and then

putting into action

what we need to do to sustain our human and non-human communities within ecological limits.  That is increasingly difficult with rising resource demands from increasing human populations, but we can do it if we tackle the tough questions now – not later.

What to do about Linear Features?

The OWC’s Headwaters Action Team has completed the Dutch Creek Linear Features Classification Project, and provided this information to GOA planners who are working on the Linear Footprint Management Plan. 

This information will also be considered in the SSRP’s

Recreation Management Plan

– a process by which the Government of Alberta will be able to provide solid recreation options for Albertans, but also address the need for safeguarding ecological values and functions in the headwaters. 

The Recreation Management Plan will address the need for designated trail systems and camping areas, and will need to have public and user buy-In and understanding to be implemented properly.

That is why the OWC’s Headwaters Action Team is now working towards bringing the science and social need (we all live downstream!) for water and watershed health to Dutch Creek this summer

. 

Our first step will be to work on awareness and education programs with stakeholders and user groups around the need to reclaim some problematic linear features, and to encourage greater awareness of impacts of use on water and watershed values.   

With greater understanding, we expect some measure of behavior change will be a result –

that people will voluntarily stick to designated trails and camping areas, avoid wet areas and riparian zones, use bridges over streams, and that this change in behavior will become the norm.

 Some have told us we are dreamin’, that this is a big ask, but we have to start somewhere!

So what can

you

do?

If you are recreationist or other user of the headwaters area – for whatever purpose, the big ask is to understand why better linear feature management is needed, and to support and adhere to designated trail and access management outcomes of the SSRP.  

It would also help if reclamation and restoration work on linear features is respected and supported by not undoing this good work through carelessness or worse, willful destruction. 

Both of these attitude or behavior problems are counter-productive for sustainable water/watershed values that we need now and into the future.    

We all think it is the

other

s who are responsible for these issues, but reality is – we are

all responsible

and we

all need

to take action!

Avoid the muck!  Help stop erosion and loss of ecologically important wet areas!

Through the Dutch Creek Pilot Project, the Headwaters Action Team hopes to have a success story that can be used as inspiration and a guide for community and watershed stewardship groups and stakeholders to address linear feature impacts in other problematic sub-watersheds in the Oldman Headwaters, and indeed, in the Eastern Slopes region of Alberta.   

We have a lot to do, but the idea is timely and needed, people and stakeholders are committed to this challenge, and partnerships are working towards achieving this worthwhile outcome. 

If you feel this effort is worth supporting,

please donate to the OWC for this important work for the headwaters!

  (OWC is a registered charitable organization - all donations are provided a tax receipt). 

Please visit: www.oldmanbasin.org to make your donation go to work for the watershed!

Connie Simmons

Planning Manager

100, 5401 – 1

st

Avenue South

Lethbridge, AB.  T1J 4V6

Work: 403-627-1736

Cell: 780-816-0654

Web:

www.oldmanbasin.org

Blog:

http://oldmanwatershed.blogspot.ca/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/OldmanWatershed

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What is a Watershed? ...or: Cutting up the Landcape

(Editor's note: Our first blog posting of the new year! What better way to start things off than to contemplate what, exactly, a watershed is. Not everyone knows the answer .... do you?)

OWC conducted a survey that asked the public some general knowledge questions about our shared watershed. What we found is that this knowledge isn’t general at all. 9 people out of 10 could neither define the term watershed nor understand its relationship to their environments.

I have spent a long time since wondering why that is, pondering everything from our education system to immigration to urbanization to economics and beyond. I was reminded of a class I taught at the University of Hamburg on Human Geography, about how we connect with and understand our physical world. What maps and which worldviews do we use? What of geographical, political, social, economic and emotional maps, for example. The earliest map I can recall is a freshly-Gestettnered copy of the political map of Canada, which we would colour, every year, in our Social Studies class from about Grade 5 through to Grade 10. Our provinces and (at the time) 2 territories, were carved out firmly in our minds.

Mentally we have strong maps of our communities. As a Calgarian, my mental map of Calgary extends beyond its municipal borders to include the outskirts and proximal outlying towns, including the Bow corridor and into K-country and Banff. Like many Albertans, I don’t have a mental map of the miles leading up to the territories nor an understanding of the mountains north of Jasper or south of Hinton. Until recently, I didn’t have a relationship to anything further south than Lethbridge, and little contact with the towns I passed through on the way there. Furthermore, as an urbanite, what I noticed and saw were human populations – I lacked a basic vocabulary for rural and wild spaces or even the ability to recognize or differentiate the nuances of the landscape I was looking at. You cannot value what you cannot name.

So, as a social scientist and new to southern Alberta, it was interesting for me to note that “community” here in this region seems to extend from about Pincher Creek up along Highway 2 to Claresholm and Nanton, then over to Vulcan and down to envelop all that farmland up to Taber. The mental map doesn’t stop at the border, it extends down into Montana to at least Grand Forks. There’s a trickle across the eastern border as well, crossing over Medicine Hat into Saskatchewan and including that ranching and farm land there, too. So there’s a kind of horizontal chunk within the southern part of the province that crosses political boundaries but has little connection to the western or easternmost flanks. Being agriculturally based, there seems to be a greater mental representation of farmland, but generally speaking, many people have an incomplete picture of other types of land use in Southern Alberta. 

How about mapping demographically? Southern Alberta is extremely diverse in this regard, as well. Just as a small –and by no means comprehensive - sample, we have American Mormons, Dutch Mennonites, Russian Dukabores, German Hutterites, Japanese Buddhists, fundamentalist Christians, new-Agers; native Blood, Blackfoot, Peigan, Kainaii, ….. more recently, Indian, Korean and Bhutanese. Each of these belief and cultural systems have their own maps and traditions for how we relate to one another, to our selves and to our natural world. Our mental maps of a region are vastly different than what a cartographer can describe.

Yet, no matter who we are or how we live in southern Alberta, we all turn on a tap to get water, and, magically, out it comes; crystal-clear and pure to drink. Hauling water for humans and livestock is a mere 100 years ago – one lifetime is all it takes to erase that toil from our minds – until the next flood comes and we are put on a water advisory, that is. Suddenly, whether we are old or young; new Canadian or aboriginal; farmer or urbanite; Catholic or atheist; suddenly, we all begin to worry about water quality; and, ironically, water quantity.

The number and frequency of floods is increasing as global warming takes an ever-stronger foothold. Just a few degrees’ increase in temperature means less snowfall. Less snowfall means there is no slow-release of water from the snowpack over the spring and summer. It means that it rains instead. And when it rains, it pours - our freshwater rushes through ancient floodplains and across farmland, carving new routes, finding old ones and uprooting vegetation before swiftly exiting our landscape. It means flood – and it means drought.

So the question: ‘What is a watershed?’ is going to become of increasing importance in the upcoming years. It will be a word heard more often; and, when spoken, with more urgency.

Our Oldman watershed, though smaller than some of the other 11 watersheds in Alberta is nonetheless still vast. It begins with the snowpack in the Rocky Mountains in the eastern slopes – an area seldom seen and sparsely inhabited. The birthplace and cradle of the water of life is a delicate nursery, one to be cherished and nurtured and protected. We must be more thoughtful and more deliberate about our activities there, since too often we don’t understand how we are affecting water quality downstream. These many tiny mountain tributaries and underground springs along the eastern slopes feed into stronger streams that flow up through and over a place, tellingly, called High River; they also flow south through Waterton and Lethbridge. They provide the drinking water for humans and animals, for industry and agriculture, merging and flowing downhill as they meander ever eastward. Many smaller rivers combine to make the South Saskatchewan- the common exit point. This river then bends north – and continues downhill – to cross the tip of Lake Winnipeg and finally exit into the Hudson’s Bay.

The watershed is a map which shows our dependence on one another as opposed to mere spatial relationships. It is the only map which will tell us that: “We are all downstream”. A watershed is an area of land from which all moisture flows to a common exit point. It includes how cities grow, how mountains crumble, where airports are built and how mines are dug. A watershed is the trees that keep the stream banks intact; it is the wildlife ecosystems that keep it healthy and functioning.  A watershed is the intuitive way to map both human and natural systems. Our watershed is what unites us.

Naapi Solves A Riddle

(Editor's note: Our watershed is a complex place,  with many competing —and sometimes contradictory—interests. How can we best create a safe, collaborative space where all voices can be heard and valued?)

This was a graphic I made up as I was thinking about the challenge we have, as the OWC, in putting out our message. 

So if there was ONE KEY THING we had to say, what would it be?

Surely that's not so difficult. So I write in "Oldman, Watershed, Council, water, management, health". Our mandate is to provide advice to decision-makers. Better add: "WPAC, advisory, Alberta". The Oldman existed before the provincial government's 'Water For Life' strategy but got subsumed into it as a Watershed Planning and Advisory Council - one of 11 in Alberta, each for a different watershed.

That means we need to come up with lots of evidence to back up our advice. Add: "publications, reports, science, facts, protecting, planning and SOW". The State of the Watershed (SOW) publication is an intense piece of work, evaluating 4 sub-basins in the watershed plus the main stem of the Oldman River.

Oops. Better add the names of all the rivers in the watershed. "Oldman, Little Bow, Willow, Castle, Crowsnest, Belly, St. Mary's..." throw in "Waterton" and "Chain Lakes" too, and better add the "Oldman Dam". 

Well, the dam isn't the only thing that has altered the course of the rivers. so I add: "irrigation, canals, flood, cities". I think about all the communities that are served by these complex systems that I have yet to quite comprehend. All the little dust bowls that are now bread baskets. I add the names of the big communities: "Lethbridge, Coaldale, Coalhurst, Taber, Vauxhall, Vulcan, Cardston, Magrath, Pincher Creek, Crowsnest Pass, Claresholm, Stavely, Nanton, High River, Picture Butte, Nobleford" ... miss anybody?

Well, we all know what this irrigation water is helping to do: "farmers, ranchers, agriculture, livestock, food, drink". It makes me think about the huge difference between city life that I know and love and the country life that I'm now learning all about. Add: "urban, rural, immigration". 

There must be plenty of people like me who move to southern Alberta knowing nothing about it. Nothing about the "plants, animals, vegetation, forests, mountains, prairie, grassland" ... gotta add "rough fescue". It makes me feel important if I say it. It just has a nice ring to it. I didn't know it meant native GRASS, a now at-risk ecosystem. There's another new vocabulary I learned that I love to say: "invasive species". Makes me think of men from Mars and stuff. I don't even know what's a weed in my own backyard never mind what's out there in the watershed. But I'm learning. Better add: "education". 

Oh! "children". Kids gotta learn. 

But what about the adults? They go out there and enjoy all kinds of things like camping, hunting, fishing, recreation, and OHVs. That gives me pause for thought. Those OHVs. Never liked 'em. Noisy as all-get-out. But I'm learning how people who work the land need them and use them to take care of it, and I'm learning that there are a lot of responsible riders that do a lot of good in the watershed, building bridges and maintaining trails over sensitive areas ... Ah yes: "habitat, consideration, responsible, headwaters".

Headwaters, headwaters. We're all about them at the OWC. It's our main priority at this point. I write: "water quality, water quantity, future generations". There's a lot of activity up in those headwaters. A lot of it creates effects that are not immediately measurable or noticeable. I add: "legislation, enforcement, linear features, landscape simulator, fragmentation, habitat, fish".

I remember hearing from a Peigan friend about how the Creator, Naapi, taught people how to hunt and fish. I add: "Peigan, Kainai, Blood, Blackfeet, First Nations, Naapi". It is impossible to talk about the Oldman-this and the Oldman-that all the time without acknowledging that the Oldman River is named so because it is the river beside which the Oldman (Naapi) walked. We could all use more Naapi stories, I think. They teach us that the light of creation is in all things.

Suddenly, I have it. THE ONE KEY THING. 

"We are ALL downstream".

- Anna Garleff, OWC Communications Coordinator

  anna@oldmanbasin.org

  587 224 3793 cell  

Will we have to boil water AGAIN?

From OWC's Executive Director, Shannon Frank: 

The recent boil water advisory in Lethbridge has brought into focus two things: how dependent we all are on upstream users to do a good job  - and how connected we are in a watershed. A watershed is the area of land that drains into a water body – as seen in the map, all that land drains into the Oldman River. And you can also see that Lethbridge is a little ways downstream.

The water quality problems in the river are complicated and there is not one obvious source, that if cleaned up, would ensure Lethbridge a clean water supply for the long term. What we have is a whole range of land uses that all contribute different types of contaminants – sediment, nutrients, pesticides, bacteria, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Recently in Lethbridge, the main problem was sediment overload, basically mud clogging filters at the water treatment plant. But where did all this mud come from?

Recreational use and forest harvesting in our mountain headwaters certainly contribute sediment, as does agriculture, oil and gas and urban communities that change the landscape. Every decision has a trade-off and many of the decisions we make create sediment and allow it to run off into our streams.

In the past, healthy wetlands and riparian zones (green zones along the water’s edge) had an important job - capture and filter run-off before it reached a creek or river. But we’ve removed wetlands and degraded riparian zones to the point where they can no longer do their job. So we try to replace that job with water treatment plants and that comes at an ever-increasing cost.

Having learned this lesson, there is a quiet push to put wetlands back, reclaim riparian zones and be more careful about what we put next to our rivers. Many landowners and local governments are leading this charge but it is yet to become a "mainstream" priority.

OWC and many other groups are working to change that. We are all contributing to the problem and can also all be part of the solution. That is what the OWC is all about – working together to find practical solutions to big challenges like water quality.

So will we have to boil water AGAIN? Most certainly. 

We can't expect to continue to do what we're doing - and even expand land uses - and maintain water quality. There will be consequences. 

There are plenty of opportunities to get involved. Whether you are a social media fan, a gardener or an outdoor enthusiast, the OWC needs your voice and hands. Several exciting initiatives are happening  - we'd love you to be part of them.

All best wishes,
Shannon Frank