The International Joint Commission (IJC) has brought attention to the Souris/Mouse River that wends its way from southern Saskatchewan into northern North Dakota before it makes its way back into Canada in southern Manitoba.
The statement from the IJC issued on Nov. 12, was their fourth report to the Governments of Canada and the United States on the International Watersheds Initiative (IWI) which highlights achievements in developing tools, building capacity and supporting studies to aid local communities and water managers to anticipate, prevent and resolve water resource issues.
The IWI program funds projects to build capacity at the watershed scale in order to prevent or resolve international water-related issues. Beginning as a pilot program in 1998, the IWI has matured into one of the IJC’s flagship programs.
One of the four main points raised by the recent report pointed to a desire to find out how governments could proceed to better protect communities from major floods in the Souris Basin, as well as at the Red and Richelieu River and Lake Champlain system in Vermont, New York and Quebec.
Last summer, Estevan played host to a two-day conference for the International Souris River Board, a 12-member panel with six members each representing Canada and the United States. They report directly to the senior commission and governments. This conference addressed the matter of future flood protection, especially for the City of Minot, as well as sharing the water resource and providing a steady water release program from the Saskatchewan reservoir system using Rafferty and Alameda Dams in southern Saskatchewan.
Delegates to the Estevan conference discussed, not only flood cycles and damages, but also potential invasive species and water quality oversight measures. This international body has been in operative mode since 2002 said co-chairs, Russel Boals of Canada and Todd Sando who spoke on behalf of American interests.
“Water knows no political boundaries. For 17 years the International Watershed Initiative has strengthened capacity and developed common tools to support binational collaboration and promote sustainable stewardship of our shared waters,” said IJC commissioner Dereth Glance for the United States. “The ecosystem approach embedded in the IWI has matured from concept to a cornerstone guiding IJC’s activities along U.S./Canada shared waters.”
“The IWI is about creating conditions at the watershed scale to address local and regional water-related issues which, if left unaddressed, might become issues between citizens of both countries. The premise is that local people and institutions are often the best placed to anticipate, prevent or resolve many problems related to water resources and the environment, and to take shared actions towards the common goals of sustainable stewardship,” said Richard Morgan, the Canadian appointed commissioner to the IJC.
That was exactly what the International Souris River Board was doing in Estevan in mid-June of this year, as they shared information and knowledge gained from the fierce flood of 2011 that led to 10,000 residents of Minot having to evacuate their homes, and the subsequent high water release in 2012 that caused some problems for cattle producers near Towner, N.D. It was also noted that Rafferty Dam served multiple purposes since it is used to provide coolant waters for the Shand Power Station as well as a flood control tool and water conservation reservoir, so sometimes there would be a conflict of interest in terms of maintaining suitable reservoir levels. The professional advisers also noted that trying to predict such things as snow melts, runoffs, and rain volumes, was an inexact science that created all kinds of difficulties for those trying to predict flows in and out of the two reservoirs.
Another issue raised by the joint commission was the risk to fish by the introduction of new harmful pathogens and parasites into the Red River system in North Dakota, Minnesota and Manitoba by flow releases from Devils Lake in North Dakota. Devils Lake and it’s levels and quality also came into discussion at the International Souris River Board conference since the lake figures into the release and water flow volumes coming from Canada through the Rafferty and Alameda Dams.
Since 2010, the two national governments have invested about $5 million in the IWI. By funding studies, decision-support tools and other work, this investment has provided the capacity to address a number of binational water-related issues.
About 40 per cent of the governments’ investment in IWI since 2010 was spent on two strategic priorities, transboundary hydrographic data harmonization and binational water quality modelling.
Data harmonization is essential to create a common set of information for collaboration on water management issues along both sides of the boundary.
The IJC is now setting some focus on supporting binational applications of water quality models being developed for the Rainy Lake, Lake of the Woods and Great Lakes basins.
