Provincial
Federal government shedding irrigation in SW Saskatchewan
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- Category: Provincial News
- Created on Friday, 27 January 2012 05:10
Government Buildings on Hamilton St. Regina Sask. Photo by Drew Fossum.
By Drew Fossum
The flood gates are remaining open but the federal government is washing its hands of irrigation in Southwest Saskatchewan.
Irrigation cooperatives have been asked to draw up plans to transfer control from the Federal government to keep the water flowing.
The Provincial Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) is the federal arm which runs the irrigation projects and has set a four year deadline for the deal. If a deal cannot be reached by this date, the PFRA will decommission the projects.
“We need to maintain irrigation so that’s what we are working on now,” said Bryan Murray, president of the local irrigation cooperative, Eastend Irrigation Company. He said the cooperative is working with the PFRA to figure out the details of the transfer.
Undertaking the irrigation project would include all water delivery infrastructure and the necessary upkeep costs, something the Rural Municipality of White Valley pledged to support.
Many roads on the project will need grading and ditches will need to be mowed, said municipal reeve James Leroy. Should there be a flood emergency in the future, the municipality will help mitigate the associated costs.
The co-ops have already had to provide workers to maintain the projects over the past two years. During this time the federal government continued foot the bill, said Perry Ludwig, a planning engineer with the PFRA in Swift Current, Sask. Now he said its time for the PFRA to hand over responsibilities completely.
“(The irrigation projects) were built in the 30’s, in the depression and the drought, to try to stabilize the population out here and create a feed supply. The worlds a lot different than it was in 1935,” says Ludwig.
He said the projects in the southwest are the last under government control, all others in Western Canada were divested to co-ops in the 80’s and 90’s.
The only part of the deal that remains unclear is who will gain control of the reservoirs and dams. Since several of the waterways involved cross the 49th parallel they will remain under the federal government, but the administration of the dams will be given to the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority.
In the event that the co-ops do not wish to take on the irrigation, the PFRA has drafted a plan to decommission the projects by 2016.