Wetland plan sends Sask. down the drain
After reading “Sask. wetland plan to have local focus” on page 4 of the Jan. 18 issue of The Western Producer, one has to really wonder if the Water Security Agency is “focused” at all in fulfilling their mandate of protecting Saskatchewan’s water resource or if they are simply greenwashing what they are doing/proposing under the guise of funding farmers to drain more land.
WSA’s and the province’s record at conserving our natural resources continues to receive a failing grade, and this policy will send them back for summer school.
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The province committed to having 12 percent of our ecoregions conserved by 2025. However, in southern Saskatchewan fewer than seven percent has been protected. So why is more development/drainage being planned?
WSA’s claims that 86 percent of Saskatchewan wetlands are intact are ludicrous. Contrary to WSA’s statement that “in fact, we’re at 86 percent of our original wetlands are still intact and there’s a lot of those wetlands that will never be drained,” WSA’s own estimates show that they have likely underestimated the amount of wetlands drained by up to 30 percent, or one million acres, and that 50 percent of wetlands are seasonal and many get farmed through.
Claiming that “most of those wetlands are protected through provincial easements” just highlights what poor managers they are, when in fact less than one percent of Saskatchewan wetlands are protected by easement.
One has to wonder why WSA has come up with such a drainage plan and why they aren’t paying attention to their own studies and reports that paint a very different picture of what’s happening to our water resources — reports that highlight that farmland drainage represent some of the greatest environmental threats to biological diversity — for game and nongame species alike — that 70 to 80 percent of wetlands have been lost in some areas, that drainage of wetlands has been identified as a significant issue in most Saskatchewan Watershed Source Water Protection Plans and that water quality standards would be exceeded regularly at wetland drainage levels above 30 percent.
All around the world countries and provinces are racing to protect and restore wetlands, while in Saskatchewan we are doing the opposite.
This new ag drainage policy will result in millions of acres of wetlands being drained, which in turn will cause increased toxic algae blooms in our lakes, increase the impacts from flood and drought, destroy critical habitats for fish and wildlife, damage critical infrastructure and private property and further divide urban and rural communities.
We need a wetland policy that is based on fact not fiction, one that brings us together rather than further divide us, and one that sets farmers up for success by truly being stewardship and mitigating the negative impacts of drainage.
Alice Davis,
Citizens Environmental
Alliance-Sask.
