Arthur Ward operates Prairie Moon Acres near Hitchcock Bay where he runs a third of his acreage under irrigation.
Over the last few weeks he and his neighbors have had problems with someone coming onto their property and shutting off the pivot points.
"During the night, every once in a while, we'll go out and there'll be a pivot that's just shut off. Then I'll go up to the tower and push the button and it starts again. Usually, if there's a problem with the machine, it'll tell you on the screen what the reason was that it quit. But if it just stops, it's been shut off."
RCMP have been called in to investigate after irrigators in the Lucky Lake area experienced problems with their irrigation systems.
"We actually had one where there had been a fuse that had been pulled and then partially put back in again. So, when you go to the machine it shows that it has power then when you try to run it, it just shuts off. It couldn't take the load, because the fuse had been tampered with."
He says they are not only concerned about the property damage, and crop damage from people driving through the fields, but also the danger that is involved.
"What people don't understand is, those machines are 480 volts of three phase power. If they start monkeying around in a panel, and they don't know what they're doing, they could get severely injured."
Ward says there seems to be a movement with people thinking that the low water level in Lake Diefenbaker is somehow due to irrigation.
He says that is not true.
"More water evaporates out of Lake Diefenbaker than what they pump through irrigation. What we are doing has no impact on the lake level. Where we are - in the Lucky Lake Irrigation District - our wet well is 80 feet deep and in a coulee. Lake Diefenbaker would pretty well have to be gone, before we wouldn't have water to irrigate, just because the water where we pull it is so deep. If in fact, there was a direct impact in what we were doing, then obviously, we would be rationing water or we would be having to change what we're doing."
He notes irrigators pay an annual fee to be part of the water program, and then pay for the water they actually use.
When Lake Diefenbaker was created it was designed for power generation and irrigation
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