SMRID announces 14-inch allocation for 2026 irrigation season

St. Mary River Irrigation District

Allocation for the 2026 season has been set to 14 inches, from the farm gate, by the St. Mary River Irrigation District’s Board of Directors following the March Board Meeting.

Combined storage as of October 31, 2025 was 463,500 acre-feet. As of March 27, combined storage is sitting at 620,000 acre-feet, or 79 per cent of full supply level (FSL). Capturing early runoff in reservoirs added over 156,000 ac-ft of water for municipal, agricultural and industrial use in the St. Mary Project.

“The Board of Directors carefully considers a number of factors when deciding on allocation. Based on modeling and snowpack data supplied by Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, we are very comfortable a 14-inch allocation will allow irrigators to grow a successful crop in 2026, while also allowing the district to meet storage targets for winter 2026,” said Cory Nelson, Chairman, SMRID Board of Directors. “This announcement follows an initial 8-inch allocation in 2024, which was later raised to 9 inches, and a 12-inch allocation in 2025. Our Board also factors in current storage levels. While the warmer temperatures this winter resulted in a reduced snowpack overall for the Southern Tributaries, strategic investments in off-stream storage reservoirs allowed for the capture of an additional 155,000 acre-feet of early runoff water in winter 2025/2026.”

Average on-crop use across the district in 2025 was 9.5 inches, as reported and recorded. SMRID is the largest Irrigation District in Canada and North America. SMRID has over 2,000 km of canals and pipeline, which spans from Lethbridge to Medicine Hat and serves 518,000 acres.

“Based on modelling, storage and snowpack data, the Board’s 14-inch allocation for 2026 supports the environmental realities of projected runoff supply and existing 2026 storage,” said David Westwood, SMRID General Manager. “We are eager to complete an additional two Alberta Irrigation Modernization (AIM) projects in 2025/2026 which will bring the total AIM Program projects completed to 24 of the 30 modernization projects. These pipeline projects have resulted in  efficiency gains across the district, and tangible improvements to water management.”

AIM pipeline projects completed, to date from 2020 within the SMRID, have resulted in an estimated 21,900 acre-feet of water savings on an annual basis. Additionally, infrastructure improvements done by SMRID as well as on-farm efficiency improvements translate into 9,200 and 16,300 ac-ft of additional efficiency gains each year, respectively.

Irrigated land within Alberta irrigation districts generates 28 per cent of Alberta’s total agri-food GDP. Annually, irrigation-related activities in Alberta’s irrigation districts generate $5.4 billion to provincial GDP, $3.2 billion in labour income, and support about 46,000 full-time equivalent jobs.