After a period with minimal comment on water issues this summer, Manitoba’s official opposition says the government needs to do more to mitigate Lake Manitoba flooding.
Shannon Martin, MLA from Morris and the Progressive Conservative critic for conservation and water stewardship, said the province should act immediately to prevent future flooding of the lake.
“You’re going to pay one way or another. Why would you not pay for the prevention, as opposed to paying for the consequences again and again,” said Martin.
Farmers around Lake Manitoba and the PCs want the NDP government to build a drainage channel at the north end of the lake, as soon as possible, which would be used to alleviate high water levels on the province’s third largest lake.
Read Also
Government to invest in biofuel production
The federal government will invest $370 million in a new biofuel production incentive.
Steve Ashton, Manitoba infrastructure and transportation minister, said it could take up to seven years to construct the channel, which will transport Lake Manitoba water into Lake Winnipeg.
Tom Teichroeb, a rancher from Langruth, Man. and chair of the Lake Manitoba Flood Rehabilitation Committee, said that is unacceptable.
“We need flood mitigation, flood solutions from Lake Manitoba immediately. Not seven years, not three, not two, now.”
Martin agreed that seven years is ridiculous.
“We’re suggesting a three-year timeline is more than reasonable to get this project done,” he said. “We have spoken to a couple of construction firms and they’re quite confident it could been done a lot sooner than the government is suggesting.”
Lake Manitoba water levels are rising this summer partly because the government has diverted billions of litres of water into the lake from the Assiniboine River, which flooded in July following 150 to 200 millimetres of rain in eastern Saskatchewan.
Cattle producers and landowners are frustrated with the province’s decision to move Assiniboine River water into the lake, via the Portage Diversion, because they fear a repeat of the flood of 2011. Thousands of acres of hay and pasture land, along with hundreds of cottages around the lake, were inundated with water when Lake Manitoba rose to record levels that summer.
Farmers said the government was responsible for the 2011 flood because provincial officials deliberately chose to divert water into Lake Manitoba to avoid flooding of agricultural land and residential property east of Portage la Prairie.
Affected landowners held a rally at a farm south of Lake Manitoba in July to call attention to the issue, but only one Progressive Conservative MLA attended the meeting.
Since that time, the provincial Conservatives have been more active on the flood issue, and leader Brian Pallister has reached out to the media to provide comment.
Martin said the province should hire a contractor to dig a drainage channel at the north end of the lake, without delay, because the floods of 2011 and 2014 may become the norm.
“We (could) find ourselves in the exact same place, in another two, three or four years, where (it’s) woulda, coulda, shoulda.”
The province has suggested that it will take years to satisfy federal regulations to dig the channel.
Bob Sopuck, MP for Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette, said that argument doesn’t hold water.
“Mr. Sopuck … has put it into a letter saying that’s absolutely incorrect,” Martin said.
“The federal approval for the project could be achieved within 30 to 90 days.”
