Expansion Update December 19,2025

The Board of Directors approved the following motion at their December 18, 2025 meeting which specifies key details of the proposed 25,000 acre expansion approved by irrigators in the February 12, 2025 plebiscite:

“…that the board of directors approve of the following regarding expanding the Bow River Irrigation District:

• The expansion will be done in two separate tranches that are not associated with each other. The first tranche will increase the expansion limit to 310,000 acres. The second tranche will increase the expansion limit to 320,000 acres. Details of the second tranche will be decided in the future in association with the completion of Deadhorse Reservoir.
• 1,000 acres from the first tranche will be reserved for the Bow River Irrigation District.
• The Capital Assets Charge Bylaw will include the following charges for irrigation acres:
  • The first 155 acres per applicant will cost $5,000/acre
  • The next 310 acres per applicant will cost $6,500/acre
  • Any additional acres per applicant will cost $7,500/acre
• Any irrigation acres purchased in the Headworks area, defined as any parcels which source their water from upstream of the Little Bow Reservoir outlet, will receive a reduction in the cost of $750 per acre.
• There will be a downpayment of $100/acre due when applications are conditionally approved; this will be refunded if soil tests fail or if easements cannot be obtained; otherwise, it will be applied to the capital assets charges.
• Irrigators will have the option of paying for their acres in five payments; however, the price of the acres will increase by $500/acre if this option is selected. The first $2,000/acre will be due prior to adding irrigation acres to the parcel, with the balance owing being due in even amounts by April 30 of each of the following four years. The $100/acre down payment will go towards the first $2,000/acre payment.
• Irrigators will have 1 year from the time their application is approved to complete soil tests, and 2 years from the time their application is approved to have easements in place.”

The following information is provided to explain this motion:

Number of Acres

In the public meetings held prior to the plebiscite, it was stated that the addition of up to 25,000 irrigation acres was justified based on projected water savings attributable to the proposed Deadhorse Reservoir and several pipeline projects that were recently completed or to be completed soon, as well as the increased storage in Deadhorse Reservoir. Most of these pipelines will be completed by the spring of 2027 and the associated water savings will then support up to 15,000 new irrigation acres.

The remaining 10,000 irrigation acres approved by the plebiscite will be able to be added when Deadhorse Reservoir is completed. We hope this will be the spring of 2028, but the completion of the reservoir by then is not guaranteed, and if the price of the reservoir cannot be justified the project could be abandoned, although that is unlikely.

The board is reserving 1,000 acres to be used for unspecified district purposes, which could include providing irrigation acres for irrigation of district-owned lands, backfilled canals and abandoned canal right of ways, etc.

Intensification

No acres will be reserved for intensification of existing irrigated parcels, but intensification acres can be purchased as long as we have irrigation acres available. Owners of parcels that are already irrigated can apply to add irrigation acres to those parcels, and applications will be reviewed subject to normal conditions for irrigation of land. Our current policies which prohibit the addition of irrigation acres to parcels which did not contain irrigation acres prior to 2019 or which have had irrigation acres removed after 2018 will be rescinded, and we will no longer require the installation of irrigation equipment prior to final approval of intensification acres. To be clear, any irrigated parcel can be filled out to the extent possible based on normal irrigation suitability criteria and the availability of irrigation acres, and applications for intensification and the process to allocate acres to applicants will be the same whether they are applying to add acres to current dryland parcels, current irrigated parcels, or a combination of dryland and irrigated parcels.

Allocation of Irrigation Acres

The process will be similar to our three previous expansions, with minor adjustments to reflect the inclusion of intensification acres. Each applicant will receive conditional approval based on normal criteria for the addition of irrigation acres for their first quarter section, or intensification acres up to the equivalent of a quarter section, before any applicant will receive more than that amount. If there are sufficient acres to grant each applicant wanting more acres enough for up to another quarter section if they want that many they will be conditionally approved and so on, until there are insufficient acres remaining to grant more to each applicant wanting more.

Capital Assets Charge

Determining a fair capital assets charge is always challenging, with the maximum number logically being the difference between the cost of irrigated land and the cost of dryland, minus the irrigator’s cost for infrastructure and other expenses to convert dryland to irrigated land. The cost difference between dryland and irrigated land varies across a large district, and infrastructure costs and other development costs vary between irrigation developments. In addition, it can be questioned whether the maximum number that can be justified based on these considerations should be charged. The board considered all factors and believes the approved charges are reasonable and fair to both those who will pay the charges for new irrigation acres, and to other irrigators that will not add new irrigation acres.

Increasing the capital assets charge for the purchase of a higher number of acres has not been done previously in our district but is justified based on our previous expansion experience. When all available irrigation acres are sold rapidly, as in our three previous expansions, the district misses the opportunity to retain irrigation acres to be sold later at a higher price. This is one reason some other districts have distributed irrigation acres gradually over several years, whereas the BRID has distributed them rapidly. If we did not allow irrigators to purchase a large number of irrigation acres initially, we would have irrigation acres to distribute in later years when their value would be greater, so the capital assets charge will be higher as the number of irrigation acres purchased increases.

Headworks Cost Reduction

The addition of irrigation acres to land entitles an irrigator to receive water under the authority of the district’s water licences, and for irrigators who receive water through district-owned infrastructure, through the works of the district. The board believes that the capital assets charge to add new irrigation acres should reflect both entitlements. Irrigators on the provincially-owned headworks from the Bow River to the Little Bow Reservoir outlet receive the same benefit from our water licences as all other irrigators, but they are not using our infrastructure and the district has no costs to maintain and upgrade the provincial infrastructure they draw water from, so it is reasonable to charge them a lower capital assets charge.

If irrigators that add irrigation acres to land irrigated from the headworks in this expansion apply to transfer irrigation acres to land irrigated from the district’s infrastructure the district will charge a transfer fee of $750 per acre for each acre transferred up to the number of acres they add through this expansion, regardless of whether the parcels they are transferred from had any irrigation acres added in this expansion.

Expansion Process

The district will accept applications to add new irrigation acres for both dryland parcels and existing irrigated parcels from January 5, 2026 through April 10, 2026. The date the application is received does not matter but it must be received within this period. Previous applications or requests to add parcels to our unofficial waiting list do not constitute an application for this expansion. New applications must be made for each parcel where additional irrigation acres are requested. Applications will be reviewed after April 10 to determine how many irrigation acres can be offered to each applicant. A $100 per acre deposit will then be required, which will only be refunded if soil tests are unsuitable for irrigation, or if applicants are unable to acquire any required easements for their pipelines. This process will apply to the 14,000 irrigation acres which can be added to the assessment roll for the 2027 irrigation season. None of these irrigation acres will be approved for addition in 2026.

Once we know when Deadhorse Reservoir will be completed, if it proceeds, we will then determine the details of the final 10,000 acre expansion. Applications for irrigation acres exceeding the number available in the 2027 expansion will need to be resubmitted as new applications for that expansion, with no preference given to them relative to any other applications made at that time.