The brassy minnow is known from three disjunct subpopulations in Alberta: The Milk River drainage in southeastern Alberta; Musreau Lake in the Peace River basin in northwestern Alberta; and in the Athabasca River near Ft. McMurray in northeastern Alberta. Since 2000, the General Status of Alberta Wild Species has ranked it as Undetermined. Recent work and estimates of abundance suggest that although the total Alberta habitat area of brassy minnows is very small, the total abundance of this fish likely numbers in the hundreds of thousands.