One thing about rainwater is that it rarely stays in the same spot that it falls.
It has a tendency to flow across the landscape collecting in natural spots such as sloughs, creeks and rivers.
As man has changed the natural landscape over the years many of those natural collection spots have been diverted, drained, ditched and in the end lost.
The situation is one which has led to water, and where it now flows and collects has become a major issue in areas of rural Saskatchewan.
To address the issue we have seen a series of organizations created to monitor drainage, including locally the Assiniboine Watershed Stewardship Association (AWSA).
For many the realty of the issue of water came more distinctly into focus when Saskatchewan saw dramatic flooding due to historic level rainfalls in 2010 and 2014, including extensive damage to homes in our city.
A trip to the west along Highway 16 will also bring travellers to the Quill Lakes area where the results of flooding are still very evident.
The Big Quill, Little Quill and Mud Lake, became virtually a single body of water due to the heavy rains and accumulated run-off, with estimates of up to 60,000 acres of land being flooded.
The high levels remain a concern in particular for area farmers who have lost production acres to the flooding.
And, there is also concern about just where the water might go should another heavy winter run-off, or rain event occur.
There is a plan being put forward by the Quill Lakes Watershed Association (QLWA) Common Ground Drainage Diversion Project to deal with the situation, but as might be expected it is not without its own concerns from some.
As a result of concerns a petition has been launched by a group of people concerned about the Quill Lakes drainage project. The online petition, hosted on Canada’s House of Commons website, calls for an environmental assessment to be completed on the proposed diversion project.
The concern is a straight forward one, when water is diverted from one area of collection, it does not magically disappear. Instead it is made to flow somewhere else until it reaches a new place it can collect.
That simple reality is why a farmer draining a slough on their land can be a concern to a neighbour if it is the neighbour’s land where the water flows over, or collects on.
In a project the scale of the one that would logically be needed to deal with the Quill Lakes issues a very large amount of water would be diverted.
The question is where will it end up?
There are claims the project would result in saline water, the water has high salt content, being sent into the Qu’Appelle Lakes/River system.
So could lakes, such as Last Mountain Lake, or those in the Qu’Appelle Valley which has significant recreational and tourism value be impacted by the salty water?
No one should argue the Quill Lakes flooding needs to be addressed, but what its impact downstream, which in much of the eastern side of the province needs to be fully understood before work begins.
