Divying up the farmers’ water
Whether they grow hay, cherries, apples or any other crop, hundreds of Kelowna farmers get the same amount of water.
The current allotment is 2,772 cubic metres of water per irrigated acre.
The allotment fee is $142.92 per acre, so the owner of a 25 acre farm would pay $3,573 for the water they use to irrigate their crops.
Although the consumption is metered, farmers do not pay a reduced fee if they use less than their allotment.
“It’s a fixed fee for all the water used, even if nothing, up to the allotment,” Kevin Van Vliet, the city’s utility services manager, said Tuesday.
It may seem strange that irrigation allotments do not reflect the specific type of crop grown on the property.
But the allotment volumes were devised decades ago in consultation between farmers, researchers at the Summerland agricultural station, and the now-defunct SouthEast Kelowna Irrigation District, an independent water purveyor which has been taken over by the city.
“The science behind the setting of the allotment volumes, as I understand it, took into consideration all crops that were typical for our growing conditions and soil conditions,” Van Vliet said.
The allotment volumes in the cityrun system are similar to those set by other, independently-operated water purveyors that serve agricultural areas, he said.
In any given year, between 80 and 90 percent of all farmers served by Kelowna’s municipally-run water use less than their allotment for agriculture, he said.
In previous years, farmers have been allowed to draw more than their allotment, but they faced progressively higher charges for doing so.
For example, if consumption went over the allotment by up to 20 percent, farmers were charged an additional fee of thirty-four cents for each cubic metre of water. Consumption beyond 50 percent of the allotment drew an extra charge of $1.12 per cubic metre.
But with 2024 shaping up to be another year of drought, Kelowna city council decided Monday not to permit any consumption beyond the allotment volume, even if farmers were willing to pay for the extra amount.
“As a result of lower-than-normal snowpack levels, upland reservoirs that supply irrigation to the Southeast Kelowna agricultural community are at risk of not filling,” states the city’s most recent bulletin on the farm water supply.
Civic officials say they will send, upon request, water technicians to those properties where consumption has been above the landowners’ allotment.
The intention is to find leaks in the system, or identify other inefficiencies that, when remedied, could reduce water use.
About 8,700 megalitres of water was delivered to farms in South-East Kelowna for irrigation purposes last year. That was about half the 17,673 megalitres distributed through the potable system to Kelowna homes and businesses.