Sask. pastures flooded with water from Quill Lakes have Northern pike swimming upstream
By Kate Ayers
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A Wadena, Sask.-area farmer found fish in his pasture on Monday when he went to check on his cattle.
Lyndon Haskey’s pasture is flooded with about six to eight inches (15 to 20 cm) of water from Quill Lakes as a result of heavy rains this spring, a CBC article said today.
“These fish all started swimming everywhere. It kind of scared me off the start; then I realized it was these jackfish,” Haskey said to CBC.
“It was quite the scene.”
The jackfish, also known as Northern pike, were joined by other visitors in the pasture: fresh-water shrimp and stickleback minnows.
“They call it the land of living skies but it’s the land of living water, too,” Haskey said.
Some farmers in the Quill Lakes area are losing valuable land due to the flood waters.
Haskey’s family used to graze 100 cows on six quarters of pasture land prior to reoccurring flooding in the region, CBC said. Their pastures are about four kilometres from the shores of Quill Lakes.
Now, a couple of those quarters, and even some fields, have been taken out of production because of the flooding. During heavy winds, all six quarters of Haskey’s land can be swallowed up by water, he said.
As a result, he sold 30 cows last season, the article said.
“We just don’t have the land any more we used to, or the quality of land,” Haskey said to CBC.
“It’s not just the land that’s covered in water, but it’s the land that’s saturated, and 500 to 600 feet back from the water.”
To help producers facing such challenges, the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency has a cost-share program.
“We have a program called the Emergency Flood Damage Reduction Program which provides assistance for the implementation of emergency flood protection measures,” Patrick Boyle of the Water Security Agency, said to Farms.com today.
“It prevents damage from imminent risk of flooding. So, if there is an issue that is approaching a producer’s land or structures, … we are able to provide some emergency support.”
Quill Lakes’ water levels reached a 133-year record high in the spring of 2016, the Water Security Agency said in the article.
Above-normal precipitation since 2005 has intensified flooding in the area, the agency added.
“The Quill Lakes Watershed Association is looking at solutions at the local level,” Boyle said to Farms.com.
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