Councillors to discuss Saskatchewan water problem

Councillors and other stakeholders from western Manitoba are set to discuss the flow of spring runoff from east Saskatchewan into Manitoba, during at a meeting on March 27.

The meeting of the Saskawatchewan-Manitoba Drainage and Watershed Management Committee will be hosted in Virden to discuss the ongoing runoff issue that damages infrastructure along the border with Saskatchewan — due to water surging when the snow melts. Riding Mountain West Reeve Grant Boryskavich said he is looking forward to the start of consultations.

“This is the very first meeting,” Boryskavich said. “I hope there’s some good dialogue on it and we can come to some type of agreements on drainage and what’s happening on the Manitoba side.”

The meeting represents a positive step, Boryskavich said, though he also noted that he does not know what to expect from the meeting as it will be the first.

A subject of the meeting will be strategies to lessen damage in Manitoba from water flows, such as possible retention projects in Saskatchewan, data sharing, and more accurate soil moisture calculations, Scott Phillips, councillor in the RM of Sifton, told the Sun.

“What can watershed districts do to ease the burden on those who are downstream?” he said. “It’s just destroying us.”

It’s important, Phillips said, to have these face-to-face discussions with counterparts in Saskatchewan, and emphasized that Manitoba would benefit from better communication about potential water flows.

“The one thing is just increased transparency, just sharing information,” Phillips said.

It is too early to say if the Province of Manitoba has been more engaged in advocating for Westman municipalities since last year when several council members from Westman spoke out and called for more support — more information will be known once the meeting takes place, he said.

Naline Rampersad, spokesperson for the minister of environment and climate change Mike Moyes, said that the Virden meeting adds on to notable progress that has been made about water management.

”Manitoba and Saskatchewan continue to strengthen our cooperative approach to shared water management … making notable progress through the Saskatchewan–Manitoba Drainage and Watershed Management Committee,” Rampersad said. “The committee is helping to improve interprovincial coordination, transparency, and communication… . Other topics for discussion (in Virden) include legislation and past successes, enhancing cross‑border communication, and opportunities for municipal‑level coordination that support healthy, sustainable watersheds for both provinces.”

Last year, several west Manitoba council members complained of constant seasonal damage to their roads and culverts from massive amounts of runoff coming from Saskatchewan. The problem to be solved, they said, is that municipalities see a pile up of water that they cannot pass quickly enough.

Russell-Binscarth councillor Barry Wishart told the Sun that “little creeks that used to be creeks are, now, for two weeks in the spring, rivers.”

“We’re not designed for it. We can take their water over three or four weeks. We can’t take it over three or four days,” said Phillips.

Russell-Binscarth mayor Judy Snitynsky said a $350,000 repair cost was quoted to the municipality to fix a culvert that was damaged by the rush of water. The municipality’s state of emergency in April 2025, she said, was directly because of the runoff.

Several of the represenatives the Sun spoke with said the size of culverts cropped up as a possible solution. Manitoban municipalities face hurdles to installing large culverts, whereas in Saskatchewan, that issue does not exist — resulting in bottlenecks on this side of the border, they said.

A number of them also suggested that the province was not doing enough to advocate on their behalf to stop the water from coming, or to support the municipalities that had to pay to fix the damage.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com