With the first spring runoff forecast of the year, comes attention for spring.
Though most of us are prepared to bid a farewell to winter, spring in southeastern Saskatchewan over the last few years is something met with a tad of trepidation. The water is high. It has been high for several years now, and that leaves many low-lying areas on the edge of a tipping point and one good rain away from serious flood potential.
We aren’t here to raise alarm bells that as yet have no business sounding, but we do notice the language now common to discussing water on the prairies. No more are we hearing about dust and drought.
Now we’re hearing about high water tables, fully-charged wetlands and the keen observations of such minute details as snow-water equivalent. All of it plays a role in the water we can expect to run through the Souris Valley river system in the months ahead.
The weather factors we have no control over. The snow will melt as fast as the warm days demand and the rain will fall in whatever manner it chooses.
Unfortunately, there is more at play than simply Mother Nature. While we can absolve ourselves of the role the weather plays, there are other factors we can consider with a level-headed and sustainable preoccupation. This isn’t just a matter for us to sit and wait and hope the water remains as manageable as we want it to be.
It has been well documented the level by which Saskatchewan has drained its wetlands, and when we see the term fully-charged in reference to the current state of the local wetlands, we must wonder how better we might be able to handle the high water table had we been less hasty to turn those unproductive wetlands into something we deemed much more useful.
There are things we can do to alleviate the hardships of additional and unwanted water, but we don’t always have the foresight to do so.
While flooding that was seen in this area in 2011 and last year to the northeast can’t entirely be chalked up to an elimination of wetlands, we do question whether or not we have been destroying the wiggle room we once had, room that previously would have absorbed excess water and saved our properties from damage.
Once again we’re heading into a spring with high water levels in the ground. Though there isn’t any prediction of flooding, we hear the forecasts of “near normal” runoff accompanied with a caveat we feel is growing tiresomely familiar. One heavy rainfall during a warm day could present problems. A big snowfall in March could throw the problem-free forecasts out the window.
In short, we don’t have the wiggle room we once did. We’re fully charged, and we’re dancing on a precarious edge that for some could mean big problems.
Slowly, we have groups working with landowners to restore wetlands in order to create a healthier water system that will be less susceptible to flooding and more flexible in managing the changing times in this area of the country.
We hope that as runoff forecasts roll out over the next couple of months they will be met less by individuals bracing themselves for the what-if scenarios and instead by people willing to engage in a conversation about what watershed stewardship really means to communities along the Souris River.
