Bow River Water Management Project Advice to Government on Water Management in the Bow River Basin Submitted to: Hon. Shannon Phillips Minister Environment and Parks Government of Alberta Submitted on: May 17th 2017 1 Bow River Water Management Project Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................9 PART I. PROJECT OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................. 19 1.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 20 2.0 Project Participation and Methods ............................................................................................. 22 2.1 A Collaborative Approach ....................................................................................................... 22 2.2 Project Governance ................................................................................................................. 22 2.3 Project Tools ............................................................................................................................ 24 2.4 Project Scope and Assumptions .............................................................................................. 26 3.0 Water Management in the Bow River Basin ............................................................................... 28 3.1 Background on Current Water Management ......................................................................... 28 3.2 Floods ...................................................................................................................................... 35 3.3 Droughts .................................................................................................................................. 37 3.4 Adapting to Water Management Risks and Demands ........................................................... 38 PART II. ............................................................................................................................................ 43 FLOOD MITIGATION ......................................................................................................................... 43 4.0 Flood Mitigation: Objective, Schemes, and Synthesized Flood Events ...................................... 44 5.0 Assessment of Flood Mitigation Schemes .................................................................................. 48 5.1 Schemes Assessed by the BRWG ............................................................................................. 51 5.2 Additional Schemes Not Assessed by the BRWG ..................................................................... 98 6.0 Flood Mitigation Scenarios ......................................................................................................... 99 6.1 Flood mitigation scenarios to achieve 1,200 cms target ...................................................... 100 6.2 Flood mitigation scenarios to achieve 800 cms target ......................................................... 114 7.0 Balancing the System ................................................................................................................ 125 7.1 Schemes Assessed by the BRWG to Balance the System ...................................................... 128 7.2 Balancing the System Scenario ............................................................................................. 147 PART III. ......................................................................................................................................... 150 DROUGHT MITIGATION .................................................................................................................. 150 8.0 Drought Mitigation: Objective, Schemes, and Synthesized Drought Events ............................ 151 9.0 Assessment of Drought Mitigation Schemes ............................................................................ 152 9.1 Schemes Assessed by the BRWG ........................................................................................... 154 9.2 Additional Schemes Not Assessed by the BRWG ................................................................... 181 10.0 Drought Mitigation Scenarios ................................................................................................... 182 PART IV.......................................................................................................................................... 187 WATER MANAGEMENT ADVICE ...................................................................................................... 187 11.0 Conclusions for Water Management in the Bow River Basin ................................................... 188 12.0 Next Steps for a Strategy to Improve Water Management in the Bow River Basin ................. 191 13.0 Literature Cited ......................................................................................................................... 196 APPENDICES .................................................................................................................................. 198 2 Bow River Water Management Project List of Tables Table 1: TransAlta hydro facilities on the Bow River system Source: TransAlta .......................................................... 30 Table 2: Irrigation District and Provincially Owned and Operated Reservoirs in the Bow River Basin Source: Facts and Figures for the Year 2015, Basin Water Management Section, Irrigation and Farmwater Branch, September 2016, Alberta Agriculture and Forestry ...................................................................................... 32 Table 3: High river flow thresholds provided by municipalities and irrigation districts at select points ..................... 45 Table 4: The four synthesized flood events used in hydrological models to evaluate the performance of flood mitigation schemes and resulting scenarios.................................................................................................. 47 Table 5: The effect of restoring Spray Reservoir to full design capacity on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series ............................. 154 Table 6: The effect of upgrading Ghost River diversion to Lake Minnewanka on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series ............................. 157 Table 7: The effect of extending Kananaskis System water shortage mitigation operations on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series ..... 159 Table 8: The effect of new storage in the Kananaskis System on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series ....................................................... 161 Table 9: The effect of a new Morley reservoir on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series .................................................................................. 165 Table 10:The effect of expanding Ghost Reservoir on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series for the two storage volumes (30,000, 60,000 dam3) ............................................................................................................................................... 168 Table 11: The effect of a new Glenbow reservoir on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series .................................................................................. 170 Table 12: The effect of a new Delacour reservoir on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series .................................................................................. 171 Table 13:The effect of a WID licence revision on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series .................................................................................. 174 Table 14:The effect of a new Deadhorse Coulee reservoir on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series ....................................................... 176 Table 15:The effect of operating McGregor Reservoir at the design FSL on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series ............................. 178 Table 16:The effect of a new Eyremore reservoir on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series ....................................................................... 179 Table 17:The effect of the scenario on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series ........................................................................................ 183 Table 18:The effect of Scheme 5 on shortages, WCO violations, and apportionment violations under the Historical, Drought 1, and Drought 2 time series ........................................................................................................