Demanding cash for ‘Lake Selinger’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/11/2010 (5693 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SHELLMOUTH — When the Shellmouth Dam was built on the Assiniboine River in 1971 to help protect Winnipeg from spring flooding, farmers nearby were told not to worry.

The Shellmouth Reservoir, now called Lake of the Prairies, would breach its spillway perhaps once in 100 years, provincial experts told farmers.

Then it breached the spillway the very next year. OK, maybe that was a fluke.

It breached again in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1979, 1988, 1995, 2006, 2007 and 2010. Each time, farm fields were washed out and farmers lost crops or the opportunity to grow crops, and any seed and fertilizer they put in the ground. Only once, in 2006, were they compensated and not adequately, they say.

They’re getting impatient. A sign in one of the flooded farm fields here reads, ‘Lake Selinger,’ referring to Premier Greg Selinger.

“They’re storing water on our land without permission,” said Gene Nerbas, a farmer who lives next to the dam. “The dam is a great thing for the province but it’s not recognizing the hardship it’s putting on us.”

The Shellmouth Dam made news in Winnipeg recently because its operation will mean no river skating trail at The Forks this winter. Too much rain last summer means water must be released from the dam during winter to create space for next spring’s runoff. That will result in uneven frazil ice on the Assiniboine River that can’t be made smooth for skating.

Farmers on the other side of the province near Shellmouth Dam, north of Russell, aren’t concerned about skating. They’d just like to be compensated for their crop losses and reach a permanent solution, such as a buyout of the valley land that’s repeatedly flooded.

“If you had a neighbour directing his eavestrough toward your basement, you’d catch on really fast. This is like that,” Nerbas said.

Agriculture Minister Stan Struthers said the province is working on a compensation package for 2010 but couldn’t give details or say when it will be announced except soon. Struthers hopes a long-term solution can be negotiated next.

Up to 6,500 acres flood outside the Shellmouth Dam. That’s only about half a dozen farms. Compensation won’t be a large figure for the province but it is to individual producers. The government could easily compensate them with revenues from cottages being built on Crown land around Lake of the Prairies, farmers say. Most of the more than 500 cottages around the reservoir have been built in the last decade.

Rick Keay calculates his loss at $100,000 when the Shellmouth flooded his canola crop this summer.

The Shellmouth Dam flooded about 1,000 acres of rancher Cliff Trinder’s land in winter of 2009. The ice froze right to the ground. “It’s like when you flood your backyard to make a hockey rink. It freezes to the ground and kills everything.” Like with a lawn, the hay won’t come back for a couple of years. Trinder claims losses totalling $165,000.

Part of the problem is more water is being drained from farm fields in the Upper Assiniboine Basin in Saskatchewan without a proper licence, say farmers here. The province tacitly approves the additional water since it eventually drains into the Nelson River and means more hydro electric power, Nerbas said.

Ultimately, it’s the province’s operation of the dam that’s causing the farm flooding. The province answers to too many masters on the reservoir: cottagers on Lake of the Prairies; industrial users such as Simplot; irrigators for potato farms. That’s in addition to holding back water so the Assiniboine won’t crest simultaneously with the Red River at The Forks in spring. Nobody cares about a half dozen farmers near the dam, Nerbas said.

Former premier Gary Doer toured the site in 2007. The Shellmouth Dam Act was passed in 2008 but it has still not been proclaimed into law because the Water Stewardship Branch is working on regulations. The Shellmouth is the largest non-hydro dam in Manitoba. It was built, along with the Portage la Prairie diversion and the Winnipeg floodway, as flood prevention for Winnipeg.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca