Group wants Manitoba Infrastructure’s attention

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This article was published 01/10/2020 (1847 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RAPID CITY — In hopes of spurring Manitoba Infrastructure to take immediate action, a community petition in the RM of Oakview amassed 475 names in its first week.

At issue is the Rapid City dam across the Little Saskatchewan River. The dam breached in late June and a repair isn’t expected until 2022.

“We seem to be waiting,” said Rapid City and District Wildlife Association secretary-treasurer Bob Christie, punctuated with a shrug.

An Aug. 20 email to Christie from Manitoba Infrastructure water management engineering and construction acting director Prokopis Papadimitropoulos cites a repair timeline that failed to impress community members.

According to the email, Manitoba Infrastructure is currently engaging an engineering consultant to do an assessment and detail design on dam’s repair, with a study planned to be completed by summer 2021. This would be followed by a construction period of approximately six to 10 months.

Of immediate concern are approximately 22 Rapid City properties north of the river not connected to a municipal water source, whose wells are running dry as a result of the dam breach draining the community’s reservoir.

“If something doesn’t happen soon, their wells are going to be affected,” Christie said. “I don’t think they can go two winters.”

“They can’t go one winter,” wildlife association president Robert Marshall added.

The trouble started in late June, when a heavy rainstorm pounded Westman, spilling the Little Saskatchewan River over its banks.

While much has been written about the Rivers dam in the weeks that followed because the strained structure put the city of Brandon downstream at potential risk, it has yet to fail and the province has since regained confidence in it.

A few kilometres northeast in Rapid City, however, another dam, constructed in 1961 to stock and conserve water, was compromised during the storm event when water spilled around the structure, cutting through the earth embankment to its immediate south like a knife.

The Sun visited Rapid City recently to meet with a group of community members intent on restoring the heart of their community to its former glory.

“I’d offer everyone coffee, but I might not have enough water,” area resident and gathering organizer Edie Evans told the group with a knowing smirk, eliciting a somewhat bitter chuckle from those gathered around her kitchen table.

Her Rapid City property is one of those north of the river that rely on well water.

Alongside Evans, Christie and Marshall, the group was joined by fellow wildlife association member Gary Phillips and area resident Joanne Evans.

Although the supply of water to residential wells is their most immediate concern, the main source of their passion centres on maintaining their sense of community.

During the meeting, Edie proudly passed around a photograph of children enjoying the community’s beach last year — a recent community accomplishment led by the Rapid City Beach and Reservoir Committee.

The committee led the charge in restoring the beach in 2016, using $30,000 in grants from the federal and municipal governments.

This was followed by an approximately $261,000 river dredging project completed last year that was funded by a collection of donors to clear out excess sediment and vegetation that accumulated in recent years.

The dredging project came in under budget, so the committee used leftover money to push an underground municipal water main to a campground on the north side of the river. Two fire hydrants have since been installed in the area.

On May 8, 2019, Riding Mountain Progressive Conservative MLA Greg Nesbitt stood up in legislature to congratulate the committee for their work, which was done without any government funding and bolstered by a major contribution by Cando Rail Services CEO Gord Peters.

The association topped up the area with $5,000 worth of fresh sand earlier this year, alongside some ground work to bring it back up to snuff for the season.

“We didn’t even get a year out of it,” Marshall said of the beach, whose sandy shore, now situated next to a murky stream, has been largely washed away. The compromised dam means there’s not enough water shored up in the reservoir to accommodate the beach or its accompanying dock.

“That’s one of the only things the kids had here in town, and now without that — you can still play out there, but it’s kind of sketchy.”

The association’s annual ice fishing fishing derby was cancelled last year due to the dredging, and Marshall said it’s poised to be cancelled again alongside a growing concern that few fish will survive into next year.

“This is going to be an environmental disaster,” said Christie, whose dour facial expression was shared by those gathered around the table.

RM of Oakview CAO Marci Quane said by phone that the municipality is lobbying for the same thing as the community members are — that the province repair their dam as soon as possible.

Further, she said they’ve applied for Disaster Financial Assistance from the province to repair various things damaged by the storm event, including the washed-out beach, and are in the process of cataloguing and invoicing these projects.

Reeve Brent Fortune said that while he wasn’t previously aware of the community petition due to his being in the midst of harvest season, the municipality’s elected officials have been in contact with Manitoba Infrastructure.

“They’re going to do an assessment first and see what’s going on,” he said, adding that he expected to see council address the community petition soon, if not already by the time this story is published.

The community group’s ultimate goal is to restore what they’ve lost, but for now, Christie said their more immediate goal is ensuring everyone has potable water this winter.

“Even if (Manitoba Infrastructure) can save the wells this winter because there are a lot of households that are going to be scrimping and scrounging,” he said. “The first and foremost is people’s water.”

To nods around the table, Christie said their simple message is for Manitoba Infrastructure to fix their dam.

“MI should be able to fix their stuff, right?”

After two days, Manitoba Infrastructure had yet to respond to a request for comment by deadline last week.

 

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB