Producers and residents along the Assiniboine River basin will have a say in projects
Chronic flooding of the Assiniboine River won’t be fixed this year or next or the year after, says a spokesperson for a new water management organization.
Nonetheless, if landowners in western Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan want a long-term solution, the time to act is now.
“The old parable is, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today,” said Allan Preston, who leads the Assiniboine River Basin Initiative.
“If we had started this process 20 years ago, we may well have avoided some of the problems we’ve seen in the last couple of years.”
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ARBI supporters want to foster co-operation between Manitoba, Sask-atchewan and North Dakota on flooding and water management issues in the Assiniboine, Souris and Qu’Appelle river watersheds.
The Prairie Improvement Network, formerly known as the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council, has been promoting the initiative for more than 18 months.
The concept gained momentum last summer following severe flooding in eastern Saskatchewan and western Manitoba.
Preston told a recent Prairie Im-provement Network meeting in Brandon that the inter-jurisdictional group will officially be launched July 1.
The interim directors are developing bylaws, crafting a mission statement and handling all the details needed to establish a legal entity.
“It’s complicated by the fact that we have to register this organization in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota,” Preston said.
“But all those things are progressing and will be completed before the first of July.”
Farmers in Manitoba’s Assiniboine River Valley between Brandon and Russell, Man., are frustrated by the lack of action on the river. They have lost tens of thousands of acres of cropland to spring flooding in four of the last five years.
“We need a (provincial) government that starts working with Sask-atchewan and saying, ‘listen you guys, you’ve drained a million acres of land and you’re producing crops on that land,’ ” said Stan Cochrane, who farms with his son near Griswold, Man.
“You’ve taken 50,000 acres of land in Manitoba out of production. So what are you going to do about it?’ ”
The Manitoba government committed $50,000 to ARBI last year, but the organization is still seeking funding from Saskatchewan and North Dakota.
Preston said government representatives in those jurisdictions are “cautious.”
“(They) are asking of us, and rightfully so, what it is we will be doing as an organization that is different from other organizations,” he said.
“We have to demonstrate what the gaps are and how we’re going to fill them. Once we do that, I think the caution will turn towards a more positive approach.”
Preston said other inter-jurisdictional water management agencies, such as the Prairie Provinces Water Board and the International Souris River Board, are government run organizations, while producers and residents of the Assiniboine River basin will have a say in ARBI priorities and projects.
“We’ve got strong support from the Keystone Agricultural Producers, the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan,” Preston said.
He said co-ordinated management won’t resolve water issues in western Manitoba, North Dakota and eastern Saskatchewan overnight, but ARBI has to take action in the short term to establish its reputation and credibility.
“We’re already looking at a number of projects that we could initiate throughout the basin that would give us those ‘quick wins’ within a one or two year time frame.”
