A water appeal board has upheld an earlier ruling ordering a former provincial cabinet minister to open up a controversial dam in western Saskatchewan.
But Frank Blair, a downstream neighbour, says that is not enough and said he plans to appeal to have a second, larger dam opened as well.
Last summer, the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority ordered former agriculture minister Berny Wiens to punch a three-metre wide hole in the smaller of two dams on his irrigated farm near Herschel, Sask.
The order was put on hold when Wiens, whose portfolio once included Sask Water, filed an appeal.
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The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration approved the main dam in 1935. It was approved for irrigation use in 1970 and Wiens later modified it and built a second dam without the approval of the watershed authority.
In a ruling on April 22, the province’s water appeal board ordered Wiens to dismantle the smaller, newer dam this spring and submit an application for approval to use the main dam for irrigation this growing season.
Blair and other downstream neighbours had argued the dams decreased water levels in the creek that flows through other farms in the area.
Blair filed a court action last year to have both dams dismantled.
Wiens said he has no immediate plans to appeal.
