Draining water from farmland could be easier under new Saskatchewan regulations, as long as downstream landowners agree.
However, the province’s Water Security Agency still expects complaints and hopes new procedures will deal with them more quickly.
Farmers have always been able to drain water on their own land, but moving it elsewhere requires approval. The agency estimates there could be up to 150,000 quarters with drainage works that don’t comply with the rules.
Downstream landowners have complained for years about illegal drainage, leading to a backlog of WSA investigations. The backlog currently sits at about 200, in part because works built before 1981 were exempt from approval.
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The new regulations have changed that while also simplifying the approval process.
Dwayne Rowlett, manager of northern regional services for the Water Security Agency in Nipawin, said the changes include relaxed land control requirements.
Agreements between neighbours to move water will be allowed as long as they satisfy all those downstream who could be affected.
“A year ago, if I was doing this talk, we’d be talking about easements,” he told a producer meeting in Earl Grey.
“We’ve now said, ‘OK, we’re going to allow written agreements between parties.’ ”
Rowlett said easements are still a good idea because they are the most secure form of land control. Agreements work as long as the land remains in the same hands.
Under the old legislated complaint process, parties who couldn’t agree first requested assistance from the agency. Staff would act as mediators.
The outcome was a non-binding recommendation, and this phase took about six months, Rowlett said.
“Probably 90 to 95 percent (of complaints) were resolved at this stage,” he said.
Those that weren’t resolved went to the formal complaint process, which required a $200 filing fee and involved a more detailed investigation, another report and an opportunity for appeal.
Rowlett said the board’s preference was to close illegal works until approval was obtained.
This process would take about another year.
Doug Johnson, executive director of special projects at the water agency, said the process was cumbersome, and the complaints often became more about personal disputes than about water.
Officials hope that including pre-1981 works in the new regulations will go a long way toward alleviating this problem.
“The reason behind that is, there’s no difference in mitigating effects whether your works was built in 1980 or 1982,” environment minister Herb Cox said when he announced the new rules.
“It’s going to simplify the situation. If we do get a complaint, before, we had to go out and investigate, we had to try and determine when the works was built in the first place. If it was pre-1981, we couldn’t do anything,” he said.
“Now if we receive a complaint, we contact the works owner and he needs to come in and make application for approval for the works and it’s the same process as if it was a brand new one at that point in time.”
The regulations are being phased in over 10 years to allow all these works to comply.
