Calgary Ground Water and the health of the Bow River There has been a lot of talk lately about water - conservation in various forms and the effect of Global Warming. The bottom line is that mankind needs to think about water use differently. Water is somewhat renewable as the cycle of evaporation from oceans, rivers and lakes occurs giving way to rain clouds and precipitation. We also have the winter's snow pack which supplies our reservoirs and river drainages during the spring melt. Great debate abounds as to the impact of man on our supply of drinking water as well as other water uses for agriculture and industry. As populations increase (in the Calgary area and through out the province) we must make better and more informed use of our water supply. We must become good stewards of this natural resource. As fly fishermen enjoying the world renowned Bow River we must act in the best interest of the river and it's trout. Many scientists and especially the politicians have made great noise about man's foot print on climate and that Global Warming will bring on many undesirable changes. One such change is the diminution of our water supply to the point that the Bow River could run dry in the downstream reaches. There are a great many water licenses issued in Alberta granting permission for water use. The urban centers are rapidly expanding, Calgary in now over one million people, and talk of water rationing (voluntary or imposed) has been in the news. The great fear is to run out of water. An article was brought to my attention recently by someone that "Googled" Calgary water supply. I'm not supporting or disputing the content of the article. Nor am I clearly on one side or the other on the issue of Global Warming. I'm merely pointing out some of the data and information reported is very, very interesting. For example - most of the water comes from the snow pack and only about 1% of the water from Bow Glacier. Calgary is situated on top of a remarkable ground water flow. And as such much of our water comes from this underground flow which join the rivers themselves. This underground flow is supplied by the snow melt each and every year. I believe that to totally "buy into the Global Warming" argument as proposed by the world's politicians might be ill advised. Just ask yourself, "When was the last time a politician got something right?" More times than not they are dead wrong about things. One of my favorite sayings, one that speaks succinctly and eloquently, is this - If Governments ran crime, it wouldn't pay! Read this article as it is "great food for thought".
Ground water flow in Alberta. In Calgary, we live in the basin of the Bow River. this is a remarkable tract of land, extending from the Rocky mountains, the City of Calgary, to the broad prairies. In the basin, all waters flow to join the Bow River. Here the aborigines lived till the arrival of the white man. It is the home to their remaining tribes, the plants and animals of the prairie, and the former home to millions of bison. (These are now limited to a few ranches in the area.) The city of Calgary lies at the junction of the Bow and Elbow rivers, and deep down, there is a remarkable ground water flow. It is so extensive that we Calgarians used to refer to is as an “underground river”. Calgary itself has over 2,000 water wells. And when the new skyscrapers go up, this underground flow demands extensive pumping before the construction can proceed. Before the Pleistocene great Ice Age, before the KT catastrophe, Alberta was under the Great Inland Sea. And as it dried up, this area that was covered teemed with marine life. The land towards the Rockies had many rivers and swamps. These decayed and their remnants rotted to form the fossil fuels of Alberta. But before they all went away, we had a huge dinosaur period here. I shall send maps of these occurrences. In the Glacial age, the Laurentide Ice Sheet, met the Rocky Mountain glacier in a line that meets at Calgary, and goes parallel to the Rockies. This Rocky portion brought down great rocks of quartzite, the largest of which is the “Big Rock”, south of Calgary . It is 9 metres high, 41 metres long, 18 metres wide, and weighs 16,500 metric tonnes! I have attempted to get pictures similar to your studies of the groundwater analyses, but the only ones I find is of the anion changes in Manitoba that are involved. (there is a color Piper diagram in the sheets I’m mailing.) Here there is a heavy concentrations of the anions, and Fluoride is very prominent here. (Just east of Calgary, where we had dried up sloughs, there was a rim of white salt, mostly Glauber’s, about them. And people living in this area had white spots on their teeth from the high fluoride in the water. No dentist was able to make a living there in the 30’s, because there was no decaying of the teeth.) Alberta has an active Groundwater Observation Network, where the groundwater levels in the aquifers are measured. Some of these wells are in the network to monitor the “groundwater quality parameters.” The report in the URL says that one can obtain the drillers’ reports and groundwater data from their information centre, but so far, I have had no luck from them to pass this information on to me for you. I am now able to get you some good information about the Paskapoo aquifer. It is an enormous aquifer, stretching from the northern part of Calgary for about 60 miles, there are water wells and springs, frequently along its course. It covers 10,000 sq, km. Of
References in URL’s http://geoscape.nrcan.gc.ca/h2o/bow/river_e.php Mussieux, Ken, Maralyn Nelson “Geological Wonders of Alberta” pub 2000 by “the Federation of Alberta Naturalists” ** Note - some of the above links seem to be broken |