AQUEN helps clients throughout Alberta secure new water licences, restore licences to In-Good-Standing and execute transfers to meet indigenous, industrial, municipal and irrigation needs.  

Over the years, we’ve helped the Town of Okotoks avoid development moratoriums by securing water licence transfers within the Sheep and Highwood River basins. One of our more rewarding projects was the ground-breaking “Legacy” transfer, in which a portion of an oilfield injection licence in the Turner Valley area was transferred downstream to the Town for municipal use.  Oilfield injection for void replacement is critical for minimizing settlement associated with oil production and for production enhancement – we confirmed that water conservation on behalf of the oil company created a opportunity to transfer a portion of the licence to a much-needed purpose.  As part of the Legacy transfer, the water license was donated to the Town in exchange for a $1 million investment in a non-profit foundation to benefit communities within the Sheep River watershed.  By addressing the Matters and Factors within the Approved Water Management Plan, we were able to achieve a rare trifecta that benefitted the environment, regional economics and social programs within the community.

We’ve also been successful in perfecting aged water licence applications, some of which have been in the works prior to the moratorium on new water allocations in the SSRB.  In each case, we had to harmonize historical water management practises and limited documentation with contemporary instream flow needs. 

For larger licences associated with oil and gas production, particularly unconventional production in the Montney fairway in BC and Alberta, we’ve had to provide technical and socially acceptable solutions that met the objectives of multiple stakeholders including indigenous communities, Crown corporations and rapidly-expanding resource players. Our portfolio includes water licences and preliminary certificates in the Peace, Wapiti and North Saskatchewan River basins.

Water has been at the center of conflicts between neighbors, communities, and countries for centuries. With growing populations and the threat of climate change, tensions are running even higher. When helping clients deal with licensing in water-short basins, it is important to remember where and why some of the disagreements arise. 

Firstly, when it comes to water, we are all conflicted and often at multiple levels. As an employee at an energy company, we may ask the regulator to streamline processes to give us easier access to water resources for our commercial gain, be it supplies for hydraulic fracturing, gravel washing, mining, power generation and manufacturing. At the same time, as a utility rate payer, we ask our municipalities to keep our utility costs low – which sometimes forces our sewage utilities to settle for less than the best available technology for treating our sewage. As environmentalists, we seek to restrict access to our headwaters – while preserving our existing entitlements to recreational activities. And agricultural water users downstream of large population centers carefully guard first-in-time-first-in-right entitlements to water – and may be reluctant to surrender some of those rights to upstream communities where future customers might choose to live. 

Having worked with some of Alberta’s leading watershed planning and advisory councils over the years, I’ve learned that conflicts arising from interest-based negotiations can actually be healthy and be resolved through transparency and openness to differing perspectives. Interest-based negotiations, as opposed to position-based negotiations, have led to significant strides being made in watershed management across Alberta. Interest-based negotiations emphasize the importance of relationships in which all parties are dependent upon each other to achieve a common goal or objective. Interest-based negotiation often forms a cornerstone of Alberta’s water management plans that establish water quality and quantity objectives in our major river basins. 

For more help on navigating towards a successful licence application or transfer, please feel free to call.

Contact Us to Learn More