Tuesday, April 15, 2025
The Water Security Agency announced it would be proactively self-declaring the Westside Irrigation Rehabilitation Project (WIRP) for a provincial environmental assessment.
“The Water Security Agency is committed to ensuring the environment is protected as this project develops through the provincial environmental assessment process,” Minister Responsible for the Water Security Agency Daryl Harrison said. “We are committed to engaging with rights holders and stakeholders in an open and transparent way and this formalizes the work that we have started.”
Baseline data collection and the planning and design work will go into a proposal, which is then submitted to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment. Collecting feedback with rights holders and stakeholders through various engagements will help incorporate their input into the design of the project as part of the environmental assessment.
“Irrigation Saskatchewan is pleased to see this project moving forward and the government’s commitment to doing it in the right way,” Irrigation Saskatchewan Chair David Bagshaw said. “Our members are producers and strong stewards of the land they farm, and we believe in responsible irrigation expansion while protecting the environment.”
Announced in July 2024, the planning and engineering design work for WIRP is being worked on by Prairie Engineering Partners, a joint venture from Stantec and MPE engineering firms. Baseline work was commissioned as part of the environmental assessment field work for both aquatic and terrestrial components, including water quality and quantity.
WIRP has the potential to add 100,000 acres of irrigated land. A recent analysis of the 100,000 acre project was done by KPMG LLP. It shows an increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $5.9 billion while generating over 30,000 jobs (person years of employment) and 9,500 jobs during the construction phase.
