ST. BRIEUX, Sask. – Tensions are rising along with water levels in the Lenore Lake drainage basin, a closed watershed in central Saskatchewan that is experiencing its highest water levels since the 1920s.
At Lenore Lake, about 150 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, water levels have already risen by nearly two metres in the last five years, say landowners.
By some estimates, levels this spring could be 2.7 metres higher than they were in 2006.
Farmers around the lake are likely to lose thousands of acres of pasture and cropland this year, and some cottage owners at the north of end of the lake near St. Brieux , Sask., were sandbagging last week to keep flood waters off their lots and out of their basements.
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Downstream of Lenore Lake, to the north and west, farmers around Middle Lake, Sask., and nearby Basin Lake are bracing for conditions that haven’t been seen in nearly 100 years, said farmer and reeve Allan Baumann.
In that area, flood waters flowing out of Lenore have already forced the closure of at least two major grid roads and thousands of acres of low-lying farmland are underwater.
Lenore Lake, which covers 15,000 acres, is projected to spill as much as three quarters of a metre of water this spring into neighbouring jurisdictions. As that happens, producers who farm around Basin Lake, in the Rural Municipality of Three Lakes, will end up losing thousands of acres of farmland.
Baumann said the RM of Three Lakes, which includes Middle Lake and Basin Lake but not Lenore Lake, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last year repairing flooded roads, installing new culverts and paying flood-related legal bills.
One legal bill, which cost the municipality nearly $70,000, stemmed from a lawsuit involving ratepayers in the neighbouring RM of Lake Lenore.
Over the next few years, flood-related spending could easily cost the municipality more than $10 million, Baumann added.
“It’s going to be a huge problem,” he said. “We’ll have an awful lot of roads and infrastructure to replace …. and the only thing that we’re able to rely on is PDAP, the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program. Other than that, we just can’t afford to be building that infrastructure on our own.”
South of Lenore Lake, near Humboldt, Sask., contractors hired by the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority began removing berms between Deadmoose and Waldsea lakes.
Until this spring, the authority had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars shoring up the berms to protect cottages and farmland around Waldsea. But the watershed authority recently altered its course and began paying cabin owners to move, sell or destroy their properties and prepare for the oncoming flood.
The removal of berms will cause water levels in Waldsea to rise by five or six metres this spring and will flood thousands of acres of farmland.
Removal of the berms is meant to reduce flooding pressure around several nearby lakes including Lenore, Deadmoose and Houghton.
But the strategy comes at a huge cost for Myles Kalthoff, whose family has been growing grain around Waldsea since the early 1900s.
The Kalthoffs have lost 18 quarter sections of farmland over the past two years. Much of that land has been in the family since 1911, when Myles’s grandfather homesteaded in the area. With 99 years of farming experience behind them, the Kalthoffs thought they would be filing papers for a 100-year heritage farm designation this summer.
Instead, they’ll be signing legal documents and negotiating with the SWA for a compensation package to cover the loss of revenue from 1,400 acres of cropland and 300 acres of pasture.
“That’s 41 years going down the drain,” said Myles, who watched last week as flood waters began to swallow up his land.
“It took a long time to get this much land together and now, (the SWA’s) just going to take it at whatever they decide is fair market value.”
The watershed authority has offered a compensation package, but Wayne Kalthoff, Myles’s brother, said it doesn’t come close to what the family is expecting.
“Right now, we don’t have our land and we don’t have any money from the watershed authority,” he said.
“If you give us a decent settlement, we’ll go out and replace the land we’re losing. Even if you tell us what you’re going to pay, we can go to the bank and borrow … but right now, all we’ve got are a bunch of empty promises.”
Alberta
Southeast Alberta
Disaster Recovery Program
• Provides $3 million to people who experienced uninsurable
losses during spring flooding in southeastern Alberta.
• Helps cover uninsurable losses incurred March 1-31 caused by
ground water seepage and overland flooding.
• Cypress County, County of Forty Mile, Town of Bow Island,
Village of Foremost and City of Medicine Hat have applied for assistance
on behalf of ratepayers. Nearby communities that experience spring
flooding may also qualify.
Saskatchewan
Provincial Disaster Assistance Program
• Provides financial assistance to property owners and others
who suffer uninsurable property losses caused by flooding, wind,
tornadoes and other natural disasters.
• Maximum coverage for owners of principal residences is total
of eligible damages, minus five percent deductible, to maximum of
$240,000 per applicant. Damage to cabins, recreational properties and
seasonal residences does not qualify.
• Maximum coverage for small business owners and farmers is the
total of eligible damages, minus five percent deductible, to maximum of
$500,000 per applicant.
Emergency Flood Damage Reduction Program
• Provides $22 million for emergency projects aimed at reducing
or preventing flood damage to communities, rural municipalities, rural
yard sites and country residences.
• Coverage for municipalities includes 100 percent of approved
engineering and technical work, 75 percent of the costs of long-term
water control structures such as berms and water diversion channels, and
50 percent of short-term flood mitigation work.
• Coverage for rural residences and farmyards includes 100
percent of engineering costs, 85 percent of berm construction to protect
farmyards and 100 percent of testing potable water supplies affected by
flooding.
• The program is retroactive to Jan. 1. Work must be approved
by the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority and completed by June 1.
Manitoba
Disaster Financial Assistance
• Provides financial assistance to help cover disaster related
losses to residential properties, farms, small businesses and non-profit
organizations.
• Eligible costs include pre-approved preventive expenditures:
construction or repair of dikes and the use of pumps and other flood
control equipment; evacuation of people and animals, including
reasonable expenses; post flood cleanup; structural repairs to principal
residences, essential farm buildings and business buildings; and loss
of harvested crops, livestock fencing, inventory and equipment.
• Maximum coverage is 80 percent of eligible costs and losses
up to maximum of $200,000 per claim.
