Draining laws must be enforced
Re: your story in the Feb. 6, 2025, Western Producer issue entitled “Sask’s new drainage policy gets mixed reviews.”
Before 1905, the territorial government set up a land water law. When the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were established in 1905, that territorial water law was set into each of the provinces.
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Through the decades following 1905, the province has altered and tweaked its water laws. My father did find out that the province of Saskatchewan did have a water removal law stating that water removal (ditching) off your property was to follow a water reduction permit system.
In the 1970s, my father applied for a legal water reduction permit for a certain area of his land. He did get the very first water reduction permit in his rural municipality.
That permit stated “no additional water.” A decade later the local government did place additional water on my father’s legally water-removed land. Upon doing that, a neighbour illegally ditched upon that land.
Complaints to the entity that was responsible for enforcing the law did nothing.
In fact, the water law does also have a section regarding natural water flows and roadway flows, such that the bridge or culvert structures in them are not to be altered without prior provincial water governance approval.
Some of them have been altered without approval, causing injury (flooding) to others.
I did cross paths one day with a person whose family still owns the land upon which a legal water reduction permit was issued to their ancestor. That permit is No. 7. They are for multiple generations and decades still following the water reduction law.
I can clearly state that it is fine for governments to institute laws, and at some point in time to alter those said laws. However, the government and that law’s governing entity should without fail enforce the law without alteration.
The law is the law no matter who is affected.
Delwyn Jansen,
Humboldt, Sask.
