Drainage questions go unanswered
I recently received a letter in the mail (no date) from the Kelvington Conservation and Development Area Authority or the Water Security Agency — it wasn’t clear — informing me, as a landowner, that the Kelvington C&D will be registering easements on my land (and other landowners) and that by registering these easements, I quote:
“You are legally authorizing the flow of water onto and off your land for the next 99 years.”
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“These drainage features will be recorded on your land title.”
“You are acknowledging considerations related to water quality, water quantity, erosion and flood prevention.”
The letter then advises me to contact a WSA employee for more information.
I contacted that person and her response was to tell me that she has no answers to my questions; she’s just the regulator.
When I informed her she was listed as a contact person on the letter and pressed her for answers to my questions, she replied that she didn’t want to bad mouth the C&D.
I pressed again for a simple yes or no, and she said she wasn’t comfortable answering my question and hung up on me.
So, I’ll put these questions to you, Shawn Jaques, president and chief executive officer of the Water Security Agency:
Are you expecting landowners to sign a 99-year easement making them legally responsible for the flow of water on and off their land, taking that responsibility away from the C&D and the Water Security Agency?
Do you believe that landowners are hydrologists and can for the next 99 years understand and mitigate the implications of such easements, including how they could impact farmers trying to sell their land in the future?
Why are you trying to offload the illegal drainage of farmland, that your government has implicitly endorsed for decades by not following your own legislation regarding land drainage approval, onto landowners?
Am I understanding correctly that these easements then make any complaints, for the next 99 years, regarding flooding, erosion, water quantity and quality, to be mitigated through the court system as one landowner sues the next, or one lake community sues or a town, municipality or city sues for flooding, water contamination from agricultural chemicals and fertilizers, etc.?
Sandy Lowndes,
Kelvington, Sask.
Drone spraying has a long way to go
Just a comment on the editorial that ran on page 6 of the Aug. 7 issue about drone applications of pesticides.
The remotely piloted aircraft system, or drone, industry progresses much faster than government, the reason being they want to sell more units.
At the prices they are selling these units for, I believe the users need to think about what it may do for them on their operation. The Pest Control Products Act ensures that the efficacy of pesticides is met for the farmer, and this is part of the application method. The same does not hold true for the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States. In the U.S., farmers handle poor control through litigation and not the scrutiny of the regulators.
I recently trained using these drones and am well aware that farmers wish to use these methods of application, but the efficacy is far from consistent and will not deliver consistency for some time.
The use of drones “may” be more effective for spot spraying those areas with significant infestations of select hard-to-control weeds. I am not convinced that the same would work for insects and fungus, or even complete field control of weeds.
Until these drones reach the size of a vehicle and have a proven track record of consistent efficacy and safety, it is likely that PMRA will not be moving too quickly on the allowance of their use on a wide scale.
That is not to say that producers will not use this technology as a potential tool out of interest and speculation.
Daniel Bechtel,
PRTox Consulting Inc., Saskatoon
