Sask. water agency needs an overhaul
I farm alongside my wife, Sandra, in southeastern Saskatchewan. I would like the people of Saskatchewan and Canada to have awareness on the mishandling of the Saskatchewan government’s Water Security Agency and partner agencies when it comes to water quality — not safeguarding against downstream flooding and environmental impacts. I have documentation to verify this.
We are involved in a 28-quarter drainage project only because our one quarter is needed for the outlet and to handle that much water in the creek.
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Praying for rain is being replaced with the hope that rain can stop for harvest. Rainfall in July and early August has been much greater than normal.
As the Water Security Agency does not check beyond the outlet, they did not realize that the same creek goes through our pasture and that much water affects our well water, and the well is on high ground.
Our well water gets contaminated during spring runoff and high moisture events and is unfit for human consumption at those times. In 2022, the water turned yellow.
My question to the Water Security Agency is why are they not checking downstream with that large quantity of water and why are they approving this?
It is because they do not care about the Saskatchewan people’s quality of life downstream of their projects.
In this drainage project the dominant drainers are draining seven wetlands over 10 acres each and there are 880 wetlands in this drainage project, according the Water Security Agency’s drainage project wetlands summary sheet.
In this project, the technician for the partner agency at the time, which was three years ago who quit this job shortly after, said to us the main drainer wanted to add more, and I said no more additional drainage, and over two years later we are presented with this additional drainage added on.
They did not even consider us in this project, and I have the email to verify this from the partner agency technician.
Another drainage project five miles north of where we live has 1,536 wetlands, and the main road that joins No. 1 Highway and Highway 48 was closed for six days because of all the water being drained and causing rural municipality infrastructure problems during a low spring runoff this year.
These drainage problems are happening all over Saskatchewan.
The Water Security Agency is putting a lot of advertising into how good a job they are doing with water quality, protecting downstream flooding and the environment to make them look good when they are not doing what they say.
The Water Security Agency has a pro-drainage policy with no regard for the Water Security Act.
The WSA has become corrupt and needs to be overhauled from the top to bottom.
It’s a good thing the last minister, Jeremy Cockrill, moved on because his last email sent to me was of incorrect information.
I hope that David Marit, the current minister responsible for the Water Security Agency, can overhaul the WSA.
What Saskatchewan needs is a wetland policy like Manitoba’s. They have five different classes of wetlands. Class 1 and 2 are drainable, but large wetland classes 4 and 5 are not drainable.
A lot of these wetlands in Saskatchewan drainage projects are classes 4 and 5.
It’s very inconsiderate of the Saskatchewan government to drain these into Manitoba.
It’s all about Saskatchewan greed, no respect for landowners downstream and no regard for RM infrastructure because the RMs paid these partner agency consultants to help save their infrastructure and in return they have no say and more water is drained on them.
These same partner agency consultants, affiliated with the Water Security Agency, tried to bully us into signing a WSA-approved contract that would give the main drainer a permit to drain these large wetlands, contaminate our well water and result in loss of land downstream for landowners.
The proposed stewardship policy will only add to destroying the environment and more poor quality water.
Who is protecting the waterways and the environment? Not the Water Security Agency, that’s for sure.
Lane Mountney,
Moosomin, Sask.
