Group voices demands for watershed strategy

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This article was published 30/11/2011 (5240 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Southwest 2011 Flood Strategy Committee got to make its demand for a regional watershed strategy to provincial cabinet ministers and departmental deputy ministers Monday night in Winnipeg.

“We talked about a need for a commission for the Assiniboine River so we can settle that (Shellmouth Dam compensation) issue once and for all,” said RM of Sifton Reeve Rick Plaisier, one of the committee’s co-chairmen. “We talked about the need for a Souris River watershed commission as well. We stressed we need co-operation from Saskatchewan and North Dakota as well.”

The group requested action following severe flooding issues communities along both major rivers and their tributaries experienced this spring and into the fall. The devastating flood, which inundated large parts of Minot, N.D., helped put calls for co-operative action on the Americans’ radar as well.

“I believe we’d be on-side with that and I think it would be in the interest of both countries, the state and the provinces to do this,” said Greg Wilz, the director of North Dakota’s Homeland Security department, which deals with emergency measures. “We have a compact with Saskatchewan and Canada, and if I recall correctly, that compact took between five to eight years to put together. Hopefully it won’t take five to eight years to put that together again to see if that can’t be improved in terms of how that watershed is managed.”

Manitoba Emergency Measures Organization executive director Chuck Sanderson said those discussions started last year, and expected they would continue, which was a positive step for the 38 municipalities and interest groups, including the city of Brandon, that formed the committee to push for a regional watershed strategy.

“What happened this spring is a one-in-350-year occurrence, but will it be?” said Brandon Mayor Shari Decter Hirst. “The general consensus (from delegates at the national emergency management meeting that ends in Brandon today) is it will be warmer and wetter and more extreme weather.”

Decter Hirst said it’s those weather patterns that can cause flooding issues on the scale of 2011.

In light of that, the Southwest 2011 Flood Strategy Committee has asked for: greater support for infrastructure, inter-provincial and intra-departmental co-operation on drainage plans, flood mitigation work geared toward water retention and control structures, help for the livestock industry, help with shoreline repairs and financial assistance for lost cropland.

“We have made the suggestion that if pastureland is not usable by June 15 that it qualifies for compensation in the same way crop insurance would work,” Plaisier said. “People should have the ability to buy up or buy down in reasonable chunks, such as five per cent, so people can buy the coverage they can afford as far as insurance is concerned.”

The group is also seeking business and industry support programs for the southwest region of Manitoba, improved and consistent disaster financial assistance and more support for psychological stress relief programs.

Communities on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border in this region are affected by water in two ways: an overwhelming surplus of water or a devastating shortage caused by drought.

“We ought to be managing these watersheds more towards flooding than any other possible use,” Wilz said. “We are not so sure, even on our side, whether we are managing as flood as the No. 1 priority with others second to that.”

Water retention, one of the management strategies favoured by the Southwest 2011 Flood Strategy Committee, is already used in Saskatchewan along the Souris River and its tributaries. North Dakota also has dams on the Souris, partly to control water flow.

Agriculture and Finance Minister Stan Struthers, Water Stewardship Minister Christine Melnick and Local Government Minister Ron Lemieux joined Brandon East NDP MLA Drew Caldwell and several deputy ministers in the room with the Southwest 2011 Flood Strategy Committee’s delegation, headed by Plaisier and RM of Morton Reeve Bob McCallum. Emergency Measures Minister Steve Ashton took part in the discussions by phone.

“For the first time in history, we had an agreement (with Saskatchewan) on the inter-provincial transfer of water during spring flood season,” Caldwell said. “We held up water in Saskatchewan so that we could work the Shellmouth Dam and prevent a worse flood downstream. If we can expand that to include North Dakota, and frankly the Assiniboine watershed extends into Alberta, …broadening the scale of those discussions are something that’s worthwhile in exploring.”

While the regional committee has called for a special compensation program for southwest Manitoba similar to ones for Lake Manitoba and Hoop and Holler Bend residents, that may not happen.

“There is a compensation program for people who get hit (by flood) and with the Hoop and Holler, we did that,” Sanderson said. “Because Mother Nature doled out the hit (in communities like the RM of Sifton), it’s not like they were chosen to take that hit. Mother Nature just made that happen. There are precedents where if you have to take the brunt of it, there are compensation plans for that. But generally speaking, the disaster financial assistance plan is very good in helping people.”

Caldwell expected there would be more meetings between government and the Southwest 2011 Flood Strategy Committee, as the talks held on Monday started further discussion.