Downstream neighbours upset | No quick fix for drainage issues in eastern Sask.
CALDER, Sask. — The trenches are visible from the air.
Dug by track hoes and other large equipment to move water off farmland, the ditches are easier to spot in the air than from the ground, especially the newer, deeper ones.
In this region east of Yorkton, Sask., drainage has been a contentious issue for years. The last few extremely wet years have made it even more so.
Of the complaints to the Water Security Agency, and Saskatchewan Watershed Authority and SaskWater before it, many come from this area.
Read Also
Farming Smarter receives financial boost from Alberta government for potato research
Farming Smarter near Lethbridge got a boost to its research equipment, thanks to the Alberta government’s increase in funding for research associations.
It’s pothole country by nature, and water funneled in this direction by natural, artificial and illegal drainage works its way into Manitoba.
Saskatchewan is working on a new wetlands policy and is also consulting on how to crack down on illegal drainage. At the moment, the policy that requires landowners to make formal complaints against their neighbours isn’t stopping the practice.
Albert Busch, who lives southeast of Calder near the Manitoba border, has formally complained after other landowners diverted water to a small creek that runs through his farm.
“A creek that used to be six to eight feet wide is now 150 feet wide,” he said.
The land around the wider waterway used to be farmed but isn’t anymore. Busch said he has lost nine or 10 acres. It might not be a lot of land, but it’s the principle.
“It is illegal,” he said. “They never acquired a permit.”
Busch said so much work has been done in the area that the village of Calder was put at risk. He said the official solution was to install culverts to drain the water, which only made his problem worse.
“There is a drop of 12 feet to a mile so you just have to point it in this direction and it comes,” he said.
He understands why farmers want to be able to farm as much land as possible, but he doesn’t understand how they can flood others in the process.
Landowners downstream from him are experiencing even worse problems and losing more land, he said.
Chuck Deschamps, a conservation programs specialist with Ducks Unlimited Canada, said it isn’t uncommon to be affected by illegal drainage. The organization owns land in the region and has filed complaints against a group of landowners who several years ago dug a ditch on DU land.
Just because DU has wetlands doesn’t mean it wants more water, Deschamps said.
“The biology just doesn’t hold to our mission or what we’re trying to achieve,” he said.
“What happens with draining sloughs all to one place is that those wetlands change in terms of their form and function.”
Wetlands can be shallow and temporary or deep and permanent. Each has different habitat and provides different benefits.
For example, the seasonal temporary wetlands that appear in spring are critical for waterfowl and shorebirds when they migrate.
“They’re the first ones in the spring to heat up and they’re full of food,” Deschamps said.
Their loss means birds have to wait for larger water bodies to open up.
Birds that rely on cattails and bulrushes for nesting grounds lose those when the water gets too deep.
Deschamps said studies have shown that illegal drainage is affecting the Quill Lakes, which have no natural outlets.
“Big Quill itself has jumped probably over 20 feet on the vertical, flooding tens of thousands of acres of pastureland, and it can still come up I think another 11 feet before it drains anywhere,” he said.
A farm family on the west side of the lake has had to build berms around their yard site and corrals to combat the continually rising lake.
Deschamps said people really have to think about where the water is going and whether the water is really a problem.
It’s a challenge to farm in an area so heavily dotted with wetlands, but he said draining them won’t solve the problem. Wetlands cycle naturally and rely on drought to germinate the seed bank on the bottom.
“The easiest thing is if you start seeing cattails growing on somebody’s property,” he said.
“He may have drained it but it was a wetland. It’s trying to function as a wetland. It’s not true flooding in the sense that people would think of flooding, as ‘I’ve got water where it never was before.’ ”
Busch said farmers who drain may solve their own issues but compound the problems downstream.
“I’ve lived here all my life,” he said.
“Everybody got along fine. Now everybody is stressed right out about water.”
He said a new law must have more bite.
“From Saltcoats to Langenburg to Lake of the Prairies, it’s all track hoe water,” Busch said.
“Manitoba got tougher regulations, checking farms with satellite and ordering drainage closed. It’s only a matter of time here.”
