About this episode

The episode discusses Alberta's water crisis and the need for a public water agency, featuring insights from J. Bruce Smedley.

In light of the closing of the Alberta Water Council—as we learned from Jay White —and the 2026 Global Water Bankruptcy report— courtesy of Bob Sandford —now is a great time to revisit Engineer J. Bruce Smedley’s recommendation to form a public water agency. This conversation from August 2024 centers on Alberta’s escalating water crisis, framed by drought conditions, failing infrastructure, and inadequate government planning and oversight. I outline recent drought impacts, including four southern Alberta communities that had to have water trucked in, and highlights the auditor general’s findings: modelling is limited to parts of the province, most basins lack conservation objectives, there is weak monitoring of water pressure and risk triggers, and enforcement of water licenses and compliance is ineffective. Bruce stress that current models assume “water in equals water out” and ignore losses from heat and evapotranspiration, and that surface water analysis is largely missing, with monitoring focused on rivers and streams rather than the full hydrological picture. We also connect Alberta’s decisions to downstream regions, noting that Alberta is effectively “the taps” for…

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