WINNIPEG – Manitobans living near rivers are keeping one eye on water levels and another on the weather forecast as the provincial government issues flood warnings.
A record snowpack this year means that water levels in the province are the highest they’ve been since memorable floods in the late 1970s.
“You don’t have to drive too far on a gravel road to find a sign up that says road out, or where a culvert has caved in on one side of the road and you have to detour around it,” said Robert Loewen, who farms near Crystal City in south-central Manitoba.
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Loewen said local municipalities have made sure that culverts and bridges are small enough to slow down the effects of normal spring runoff.
Bypassing culverts
However, because of the unusual amount of snow this year, the water is bypassing small culverts and bridges and taking the direct route over roads.
“I probably haven’t seen this amount personally for about 20 years,” Loewen said, adding there has been localized flooding of farmland in his area.
He predicted he could be on his land by mid-month: “With the drainage systems that a lot of farmers have set up, after this initial runoff, things will look a lot brighter.”
The record snowpack isn’t news to Chuck Stienwandt, who farms near Grandview.
“We can’t see any black patches sticking out of the snow on the fields yet,” he said last week, adding that the grass is usually green by this time.
But the probable delay in seeding will give Stienwandt and other area farmers some extra time to get equipment out of implement sheds that caved in this winter because of a heavy snowfall.
Stienwandt’s land is on high ground. But he thinks farmers who live near the Valley River could see a lot of water on their land, depending on how fast the snow melts.
“When that snow starts melting, you can count on a lot of water coming toward Grandview.”
