Why a Southern Alberta First Nation turned off the tap to hundreds of area farmers

Alberta farmers rely on water diverted from the Old Man River through the Piikani Nation Reserve. On April 12, leaders ordered the route closed to get the government's attention.

Troy Bischler started to panic. The Granum, Alta., area farmer was in the middle of calving season with 180 cow-calf pairs and he was running out of water.

“We maybe have a week left in the dugout. After that there is really no Plan B,” Bischler told Global News on April 27. “Either that water comes down the canal and starts filling the dugout, or I don’t know. We cannot move these cattle halfway through calving season to another water source. It will not work.”

Bischler farms in a part of Southern Alberta that doesn’t get a lot of rain. Agriculture operations supporting more than 200,000 acres of land and 750,000 head of cattle rely on irrigation supplied by the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District. The water is diverted from the Old Man River through a canal gate on the Piikani Nation Reserve.

On April 12, the Piikani Nation leadership ordered that gate be closed.

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“The river is very important to the Piikani Nation,” Piikani Nation Councilor, Riel Houle said. “We understand the downstream impacts of farmers and other people who need access to the water but (we also) get very protective of our river. It’s sacred to us.”

Houle says the act of defiance was carefully considered. Twenty years after a water rights agreement was signed between the Piikani and the federal and provincial governments, Houle says a lot has changed. For one, the diversion weir on Piikani land is aging and planning for new infrastructure is underway.

“The province wants to come and build a new (weir) and the Piikani Nation wants to be a part of that because it’s a major project that his happening on our land.”