Letters to the editor - February 29, 2024

Sask. discourages drainage complaints

I was shocked to learn recently that Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency is now charging a fee of $1,000 when you go to complain about illegal drainage flooding your farmland (https://www.wsask.ca/file-a-request-for-assistance-for-unapproved-drainage-works/).

WSA’s legislation requires all drainage to have a license, and WSA by law is responsible for enforcing that. But rather than actively monitoring for illegal drainage and enforcing their own regulations, something the provincial auditor criticized WSA for not doing, WSA relies on complaints.

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WSA’s website says the fee will be refunded if the issue under investigation is related to impacts caused by drainage works but also mentions that water quality concerns are not eligible for a request for assistance.

Relying on complaints is an ineffective way to regulate drainage. There are already hundreds of producers who have filed complaints and have been waiting for over five years for WSA to control and regulate the drainage illegally flooding their land. The complaint process is already unfair and causes many farmers and ranchers stress, sleepless nights and anxiety as it continues to impact their farm unregulated without any sign of stopping.

The Water Security Act requires WSA to ensure all drainage has an approval and states that ditching your land without approval from affected downstream landowners is illegal.

WSA could simply look at all the costly satellite imagery of the ditches that WSA possesses, determine if there is illegal drainage, and if so, order them closed where downstream approval has not been secured.

Instead, WSA will do nothing about a tip or complaint about the flooding unless it is in writing. Once in writing you can expect to fight with your neighbours for years before WSA will even begin working to regulate the drainage.

Now they are “extorting” $1,000 up front per complaint. You’re being flooded? Shell out $1,000. You think your neighbour is removing a ditch block that WSA ordered installed?. Lay another drainage complaint and pay another $1,000 up front. That illegal ditch that was ordered closed is “contoured” in the spring to move more water illegally? Pay another $1,000 and lay another complaint.

If forcing farmers to file these drainage complaints wasn’t vindictive enough, now the WSA is telling you that you have to pay the provincial government just to get them to follow their legislation. Charging $1,000 will do one thing, stop farmers flooded by drainage from complaining.

Those who are experiencing stress and sleepless nights and are fighting with their neighbours over something that is the government’s responsibility to regulate can thank the WSA and Premier Scott Moe.

This fee, refundable at the government’s discretion, just shows that the WSA isn’t concerned about following the law, enforcing illegal drainage or the damage it’s causing producers downstream and doing to our environment. It’s clear they just want people to stop complaining so they don’t have to regulate and enforce our drainage laws.

My hope is that WSA and the premier will experience the same stress and sleepless nights when farmers phone them about this new fee.

Saskatchewan remains the only province in Canada that does not have a wetland conservation policy and it’s pretty clear they don’t want one.

Sandy Lowndes,
Kelvington, Sask.

Conservation essential for Saskatchewan

As rural residents with much vested in the rural lifestyle, we have concerns about the Saskatchewan government’s apparent lack of a comprehensive policy and strategy to ensure the conservation of adequate natural habitat and wetlands. Our concerns are not only for the present but for generations to come.

Whereas wetlands and green acres are an essential part of our ecosystem and help reduce the affects of climate change, and whereas wetlands contribute to the well-being and enjoyment of Saskatchewan people, as well as providing habitat to many species, we feel it necessary to have a long-term vision for its protection — a plan that would include a Water Security Agency that has the resources, the purpose, the direction and the authority to oversee all drainage projects in the province, a system that does not pitch neighbour against neighbour and asks more than how is this project inconveniencing the neighbour but how is it affecting our overall vision for the protection of the environment in the long term.

At present, the Water Security Agency will not investigate illegal ditching without the complaint and a $1,000 deposit from an affected neighbour. This does not serve anyone, much less long-term sustainability.

Responsibility for wetlands needs to fall squarely on the Water Security Agency and not be downloaded onto municipalities.

Linda Patenaude
Kelvington, Sask.