County gets water rights from Village of Champion

Cypress County confirmed Tuesday it had successfully acquired the water rights formerly held by the Village of Champion in Vulcan County.

The acquisition brings 95 acre feet of additional water for present and future use within Cypress County. The terms of sale will not be publicly disclosed.

“We aggressively pursued these,” confirmed Cypress County CAO Doug Henderson. “We wanted to make sure we got them. The negotiation took a couple of months to decide what we wanted and to sign an agreement, but from there is it a very long process. It takes a little over a year to get it transferred from the village to the county through the Alberta Environment process.”

Henderson said these rights are becoming harder and more expensive to acquire all the time, which is the reason for keeping the exact amount paid in this instance private.

“We are always looking for more water licence. Water has become a very precious commodity in the South Saskatchewan River basin. We are competing with developers in the west country right up to Calgary for these water rights. Because there are no new water licences being allocated in the South Saskatchewan River basin, we have got to get the water from somewhere else.”

Henderson said the Village of Champion was motivated to sell, and the county had the resources to put in the winning bid.

“The Village of Champion, a number of years ago, connected onto a regional water system through the County of Vulcan,” explained Henderson. “Because of that, they no longer needed these water rights. Alberta Environment said they had to either use them or lose them.”

Henderson said the acquisition should allow the county to provide water for about 200 new connections or houses in the region.

“These water rights help us to get more development happening out here in the Dunmore, Irvine, Walsh areas,” confirmed Henderson. “We had some water (licence) left, but we were getting close to the zero mark; so this was really nice to see come through.”