After getting its fingers burned in last year’s Lesser Slave River dredging incident, M.D. #124 council wants to keep its hands out of the fire. Understandably.
What it wants is for Alberta Environment to take responsibility for keeping the river running. Environment has greater jurisdiction, and presumably more clout in dealing with the federal government, which is more than a little sensitive about what goes on in navigable waters and fish-bearing streams.
It makes perfect sense, but when the Lesser Slave Lake Watershed Council tried to pass a motion supporting the M.D.’s position, the Alberta Environment member voted against it, and also claimed that the motion needed unanimous consent to pass. The council accepted that ruling, even though upon subsequent examination, its by-laws showed that unanimous consent was not needed to pass a motion.
All this was reported to M.D. council at its Jan. 30 meeting by councillor Darcie Acton, who represents council on the watershed council.
One sticking point for the Environment person, evidently, was ‘full responsibility’ versus ‘sharing responsibility’ with the M.D. for maintaining river flows.
Another sticking point, Acton said, was the term ‘maintaining minimum flows’, which was in the motion. The Environment rep said, “if we’re going to require minimum flows be maintained, we need to define it.”
Councillors were not happy with the news, particularly as it seemed to contradict the spirit of information conveyed to the M.D. by an Environment official last year. On the second point, councillor Mike Skrynyk had something to say.
“For them to ask for flow rates is ridiculous,” he said. They’re the experts, let them figure it out.
M.D. manager Allan Winarski agreed, calling it “a red herring.” However, he added that he had invited the official in question to a council meeting to explain his position, and said he believes there is “wiggle room,” on the issue.
Meanwhile, council agreed that the question of supporting the M.D.’s position should come back before the watershed council for another vote. Council discussed whether is should be re-worded, but reeve Denny Garratt didn’t think so.
“I don’t think we water down our position after what we went through,” he said.
What the M.D. went through was the threat of legal action by the federal government. The feds didn’t like the fact that the M.D. had gone ahead with dredging when the river all but stopped flowing in late 2006, or perhaps the way that it was done. That’s when M.D. council decided that Alberta Environment should be the agency taking responsibility for ensuring water flows in the river.
“We were accused of over-stepping our bounds,” Garratt said in a subsequent interview. “They threatened all kinds of things. It’s not something we want to go through again.”

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