SASKATOON – About the only thing that dried up in southern Manitoba in the last couple of weeks has been grain deliveries.
“There’s no deliveries and there’s nothing moving out,” said Vance Huebner, who manages the Manitoba Pool Elevators facility at St. Jean, about 70 kilometres south of Winnipeg. “They can’t run a train on this subdivision right now.”
With roads under water and fields flooded throughout the Red River Valley, probably the last thing on farmers’ minds has been hauling grain to local elevators.
Even if they had, there wouldn’t have been trains to take it out of the elevator. Both CN Rail and CP Rail closed lines in the flood-stricken area last week, although officials said some could be back in operation by the end of this week.
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In late March and early April, the Canadian Wheat Board implemented a special program to move as much grain as possible out of potential flood areas, freeing up elevator space so farmers could deliver farm-stored grain at risk from flood waters.
Grain was moved
Bert Dupasquier, the CWB’s area representative in the Red River Valley, said the program worked well, thanks to co-operation from elevator companies and the railways.
“To my knowledge we have not lost any grain due to flood waters and that’s the big thing,” he said.
Jim Feeny of CN Rail said the flooding wasn’t a crisis. “Everybody knew it was coming. It’s just something you work around.”
