The Bow River Basin is home to a $150 million river recreation community covering the world-class Canoe Meadows on the Kananaskis River, an ever-expanding raft and paddling experience between Canmore and Calgary. Add Calgary’s Harvie Passage Whitewater Park and the downstream Blue Ribbon Trout Fishery there is something for everyone. Unfortunately, river recreation activities are threatened by poor water management policies. Principally the lack of government oversight on Transalta’s Bow River hydroelectric power plant operations upstream of Calgary. The 2013 Bow River flood and the potential for drought in recent years have shifted a balanced water management policy in favor of protecting municipal infrastructure and ensuring an endless water supply to the downstream agriculture irrigation districts.
The result has been extreme flow variability unaccounted for by snowmelt and rainfall across the basin. Throughout the summer months, there has been rapid up-ramping and down-ramping of flows not seen before that disturbed fish feed behavior to such an extent that a day’s sport fishing was either postponed, canceled, or wiped out. There is certainly a belief within the fishing community that government oversight of water management policy is inadequate to protect a vulnerable sport fishery.
Calgary River Users Alliance has engaged with the Government of Alberta and Transalta over these concerns. The following gives details. Without significant and focused engagement on the part of the fishing community to improve the Bow River water management policy the sport fishery will continue to decline.
