An adventure to Okotoks: How water scarcity and pollinators are linked

July 18, 2025

Text and photos by Kennedy Halvorson

Have you ever wandered around the Town of Okotoks and noticed its green initiatives?

I saw it first-hand last weekend, during AWA’s pollinator-powered adventure in the town as part of Okotoks’ annual Pollinator Week, which celebrates and raises awareness about all those bees, beetles, birds, butterflies, moths, and more that help pollinate our crops and wild plants.

The adventure began at the town’s Environmental Education Centre, which is co-located with a solar-panelled compost and recycling eco-centre and wastewater treatment plant. The adventure group followed a route south and westward. The path is paved, but the borders are wild with native plants in bloom; goldenrod, asters, wild bergamot, blanket flowers, and more intersperse the meadows and forest along Sheep River.

Okotoks is a neat example of what can be achieved when the environment informs management; the municipality is keenly aware of the region’s water scarcity and has planned for it. And in doing so, it has helped pollinators too. Like all parts of the environment, the two are intrinsically linked.

Many rivers in southern Alberta are overconsumed. Water use needs to be reduced to protect long-term watershed health. At the same time, prairie ecosystems are among the least protected in Alberta, while containing over 75 percent of the province’s species at risk. And, many pollinator species are declining in population size, distribution, and abundance, with a major threat being habitat loss and degradation.

Southern Alberta’s pollinators have co-evolved with the region’s ecosystems, relying on the forage and habitat provided by native grassland and parkland plants, and reciprocally, providing those that flower with pollination, facilitating their reproduction. The native plants that grow here are naturally drought-tolerant; they have adaptations that let them grow and thrive with low and infrequent precipitation.

So, when Okotoks prioritized retaining and restoring native prairie habitat, water use intensity was reduced, biodiversity and at-risk ecosystems are now supported, and quality habitat is provided for pollinators. It’s a conservation win on multiple fronts.

It’s no surprise that the town was designated a Bee City in 2021, for continually supporting and promoting healthy, sustainable pollinator communities and habitats. Okotoks’ sustainability pledge is evident even outside of its commitments to be a bee-friendly urban space.

Avery Kaszas, a conservation coordinator with the town, told our adventure participants about the many policies and programs offered in Okotoks to conserve water. For one, lawn watering is restricted to specific days and rebates are available for planting drought-tolerant trees, plants, shrubs, for applying compost and mulch to retain water and improve soil health, and for rain barrels and water-efficient irrigation systems. The town even has an incredibly popular xeriscaping program that removes non-native turf grasses and replaces them with water-wise landscaping.

The benefits to the municipality and Okotokians are numerous. Water security is increased, the costs, labour, resources, and time spent maintaining lawns and greenspaces are reduced. Healthy ecosystems support climate resilience and mitigate natural disasters, and more pollinators means better pollination, which in turn means increased crop nutrition and yield and that leads to greater food security. It pays to invest in the environment.