The City Is Building a Water Plan And Wants Your Input
Medicine Hat is asking residents to weigh in on how the city manages its water future, with a public survey now open as part of a new Water Management and Adaptation Strategy.
The strategy the WMAS is the city's first attempt to pull water supply, wastewater, stormwater, growth planning, and climate considerations into one coordinated plan. Right now those systems are managed separately. The goal is to unify them before a problem forces the issue.
It comes out of a specific Council-approved directive in Medicine Hat's Environmental Framework Priority Action #4 which called for a proactive, phased approach to water management covering source protection, utility operations, growth planning, legislation, and climate response. The survey is the public step of that process.
Why Medicine Hat Needs This Now
Medicine Hat operates its own municipal water utility one of the few Alberta cities that still does. That independence has its advantages, but it also means the city absorbs the full risk of keeping those systems running without provincial utility backing.
The pressures on those systems have been building. Southern Alberta has had consecutive years of drought. The city is growing. Stormwater infrastructure is under more strain as rain events get heavier. Provincial water regulations keep shifting. And across city services, aging infrastructure is becoming a recurring theme the city's electrical substations from 1984 were recently flagged as approaching end of service life, a sign of what deferred maintenance looks like at scale.
No single plan currently covers all of that. The WMAS is the city's answer to that gap.
How the Strategy Gets Built
The City is working from three angles: talking to the technical and operational staff who run water-related services every day, reviewing what the data on existing water, wastewater, and stormwater systems actually shows, and layering in growth forecasts and climate projections on top of that.
Adria Coombs, the City's Manager of Environmental Strategy and Compliance, put it plainly in the release. The technical work can tell you what the risks are and what they might cost. What it can't tell you is what residents think should come first.
"These technical inputs help us measure factors such as likelihood, risks, potential cost and, from there, determine existing or planned resilience measures to address these current or future water challenges," Coombs said. "But as we build out this plan, understanding which challenges our residents view as priority will help focus our efforts in a coordinated way."
Whatever residents flag goes directly to Council and administration to help decide where attention and money get focused.
Take the Survey
It's open until Friday, June 19 at medicinehat.ca/waterstrategy. Everyone who completes it is entered to win a $75 prepaid credit card.
Sources:
City of Medicine Hat news release, May 21, 2026: medicinehat.ca
