Plowing up the prairie: Will history repeat itself?

Posted on September 18, 2025 by Taber Times

If you like space and the sense of spaciousness, you’ll like prairie grasslands. There isn’t the grandeur of a mountain peak, the sheltering aspect of a forest, or the cool respite of a stream. Instead, this is a place embodied in the fleetness of an antelope, the tinkling call of a Sprague’s pipit, and the wind roiling the grasses like a prairie ocean.

Grasslands have always been looked at, not for what they are, but what they might be, possibilities as in fields of wheat, alfalfa, or potatoes.

That’s why we found ourselves, my wife and I, for a unique date night in a church hall in Taber over a scheme to plow up 3000 acres of native grassland. The meeting, like several before it had been convened by the Oldman Leaseholders Association. 

It had come as a shock to discover plans to plow up and put under irrigation 24 quarter sections of their grazing lease in the MD of Taber. With this their leases would not be renewed and could be cancelled with short notice.

Knowledge of this hadn’t come through normal channels. Instead, they had encountered people employed by the Bow River Irrigation District surveying for the proposed irrigation project. Then they discovered the BRID had dangled this proposal in front of the MD of Taber as a revenue generating opportunity.

Those in the church hall included ranchers, some of whom would be the losers in this scheme, irrigation farmers who might benefit, and three municipal councillors. The crowd was polite, but many were evidently skeptical over this scheme of plowing up prairie. My wife and I have no skin in the game, but our hearts are biased in favour of native prairie. 

As in a good detective story, to understand this is to follow the money. The MD of Taber finds itself in a revenue deficit situation to service the needs of the municipality and are reluctant to increase taxes. The BRID has “surplus” water at the end of their canal system, immediately adjacent to this large parcel of prairie. Plowing up prairie and converting it to irrigated fields is promoted as a revenue generating opportunity for both the MD and the BRID.

The MD have proposed borrowing six million dollars for their share of this irrigation project. This will be cost shared with the BRID, who will fund their share likely with an interest free (and low risk) government loan.

There are several keys to understanding the issue. One is the apparent availability of water for irrigation in the form of “spill water” or “terminable water.” As the latter term indicates, this is water at the end of an irrigation system. It takes water to move water through an irrigation system of canals, so at the end there is conveyance water as well as water unused for irrigation because of rainfall amounts.

There is much uncertainty in water availability. When irrigation demand is high, especially in drought, upstream irrigators will use all they can. This will leave little for those stuck with high land rentals and bills for irrigation pivots. Once a commitment has been made for irrigation agriculture it is very difficult to pivot to dryland cultivation.

The MD of Taber believes this native prairie is “deeded” private land and hence can plow it up without consequence. However the land is not private in any sense of the term and is public land vested with the 7800 residents of the municipality. 

The provincial government, through the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan, provides direction that public lands under native prairie are to be protected. When the provincial government passed these lands to the MD of Taber, it was done with the understanding that the lands would remain as native grassland. Previous MD councils had agreed to protect these native grasslands.

Some sympathy is due the MD of Taber in a search for revenue. However, without a diligent and wider review of options, this irrigation proposal seems like a new, shiny thing. Such is the case with every shiny thing—such promise, a solution to every want. This seems rushed, the details are sketchy, and sharp pencils and objective reviews are required to see if this is a viable scheme. Otherwise it might be akin to a trip to Vegas to make the MD’s fortune.

Before launching into what could be a white elephant that costs the MD, it would be wise to explore the revenue issue more broadly. It might be possible for the MD to put the lands under a conservation easement and generate revenue from interest on a lump sum payment. It would be beneficial for the MD to directly capture surface rights payments from the oil industry. It also behooves the MD to critically review which segments of the municipality cost the most to service and if taxes paid are proportionate to those costs.

It is an irony that these lands were designated as “tax recovery.” They reverted, or fell back on municipalities and inevitably the provincial government when farmers suffering through the economic and environmental disaster of the 1930s couldn’t pay their taxes. Several oil companies currently owe the MD hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Many are insolvent. It seems like history repeating itself. 

As Mark Twain quipped, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” While the events aren’t exactly the same, there are similar patterns which reoccur. And they could happen again with the irrigation scheme. Ecosystem stability, in the form of leaving these grasslands right side up, is the best, long term hedge against repeating history.

Lorne Fitch

Professional biologist, retired Fish and Wildlife biologist and past adjunct professor with the University of Calgary