Faced with massive flooding a year ago that caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and brought on a state-of-emergency declaration, home and cottage owners at Katepwa Lake could be confronted with a new water-related challenge.
This time around, however, it's the possibility of low water levels that has seasonal and permanent residents at Katepwa concerned following the announcement by Brazilian mining giant Vale it's studying the potential for constructing a potash mine near Regina.
If Vale proceeds with the project it's considering building a 70-kilometre pipeline from Katepwa to the Kronau and sending 40 million litres of water daily to the mine. Whether Vale will build the mine will be decided this year and if it gets government approval, construction on the pipeline could start in 2013.
That has Katepwa residents worried, according to District of Katepwa administrator Glenda Hodson, who says a lack of information is adding to the uncertainty.
Dispelling that uncertainty and providing accurate information was the pressing imperative to the meeting held Saturday at the resort village office and attended by representatives from Saskatchewan Water Corp. (SaskWater) and Saskatchewan Watershed Authority (SWA) along with area elected officials.
"I believe people are scared. They don't know what's going on," Hodson says. "There's too much speculation and no concrete answers" but the meeting and the information gathered by the district will enable it in turn to disseminate it to lake users and residents, Hodson says.
The District first heard about the possibility of a mine and the Katepwa pipeline during a meeting last fall with SaskWater, says Hodson, but it was very preliminary: "At that time, basically all (Sask Water) knew was the name of the potash company and the location of the mine."
At Saturday's meeting the District presented a list of questions to SaskWater and SWA and pressed for a week deadline for those questions to be answered after which it would provide information its webpage. Saturday's meeting was restricted to government and area municipal officials, Hodson says, but once the more information from that meeting is provided to the public, a meeting or meetings will be called that'll be opened to the public.
Hodson says the District is also encouraging people to provide their comments and opinions via Facebook created by the District. There could be a wide range of concerns posted back to the District considering the number and variety that have been expressed from home and cottage owners, and lake users in general.
"It's a wide base of concerns, anywhere from the basic that everyone's asking - how it will affect the water level and the flow rate, to much more complex questions like where the water is going to be pumped from (to) what will it do to the fish quality.
"There's questions about what's going to happen to left-over salt this mine is going to create. There's questions about what happens to the salt tailings piles, how many years do the mines have to dispose of these, how are they going to remove them, how much additional water is required."
And while no one has specifically asked her about what the project could do to property values, Hodson says she's sure that question is on the minds of many Katepwa Lake property owners.
One of those cottage owners is Merv Ozirny of Melville who believes pumping such a massive volume of water from Katepwa will have a substantial negative impact.
"It's going to upset the ecology of the water and the fish in that area. I think there's going to be a very, very strong (public) stand against it."
While there's been surplus water to the point of flooding at Qu'Appelle Valley lakes including Crooked and Round last year, that situation could change quickly, Ozirny points out.
"It (10 per cent of Katepwa Lake's total volume) could be a lot (to be pumped) in a drought year (and) it's not only going to affect Katepwa, it's going to affect the lakes downstream." Ozirny says.
