The River That Once Ran Through It

Canadian Geographic has a great article on how the South Saskatchewan River is in danger of running dry.

The true danger is hard to know. A 2009 report by World Wildlife Fund Canada called it the country’s most-threatened river. Yet record rains this year have caused floods and widespread crop damage. Amid such climatic uncertainty, perhaps the real threats to the South Saskatchewan are not drought or flood, but ignorance and confusion. As with every Canadian river and lake, hundreds of government, academic and stewardship agencies at federal, provincial and municipal levels attempt to study and manage the river, directly or indirectly. There is no means to coordinate them. Water is so abundant across most of Canada that we have gotten away with such Byzantine management. When the reckoning comes, it will surely come first to our dryland river. After 150 years of settlement in the mercurial west, we cannot answer the one question most basic to our livelihood: will there always be enough water?

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