Farm flooding threatens farmers’ income
- Details
- Published on Thursday, November 17, 2016
Brothers frustrated by inaction
Submitted photo. The road by the Coutts’ field (left side, covered in water) is three feet lower than it should be, allowing water to flow over it and flood their fields.
By Tony Eu
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
For farmers, spring is a busy time. Fields need to be tended to and crops need to be planted; what a farmer manages to accomplish in those couple months dictates what a perfect year will yield. Spring is also a time of hope. Hope that the work put in during those first months isn’t wiped out by pests, that the weather helps instead of hinders.
For Gordon and Kenny Coutts, spring isn’t quite as optimistic a time. The brothers own 160 acres of farmland northeast of Plumas, in the RM of Westlake-Gladstone. The land is split 50/50, with each of them looking after 80 acres. Unfortunately, a large portion of that land becomes a lake during the spring thaw.
Every year for the past six years, water from the ditches has come up over the dyke, across the road and flooded out huge sections of land. “One day it can be bone dry, the next day it can be a foot deep,” said Kenny, describing the situation.
“Our road is three feet lower than the dyke on the opposite side of the road,” Gordon mentioned. “[The road] is supposed to be the same height or a foot higher,” he added. This discrepancy in road height is one of the two core issues that results in the Coutts’ annual flooding issue.
The other main factor that’s causing a problem is the new Ducks Unlimited dam. “The flooding never occurred until after this new dam shows up,” Gordon noted. “They put a permanent structure dam instead of a gate dam. [Before], they could lift planks out, let the water go, but now it’s a steel girder bridge across it,” he explained. According to Gordon, the change was due to individuals cutting the planks out of the gate dam to let water out in the spring.
Another factor that’s contributing to the flooding is the drainage of permanent sloughs. The water from the sloughs is being drained towards the Coutts farm from further west.
The area has also been historically prone to flooding during wet years, as it’s close to the marsh. However, the flooding the Coutts are now experiencing doesn’t seem to be linked to the condition of the marsh or how wet the year is.
“[It] doesn’t matter how heavy the snow is, every year I deal with this,” Gordon said. Kenny remarked, “It’s been doing this on the years where it’s not spilling anywhere else.” He mentioned as well that flooding in the past has been due to the marshland expanding into their area, but now, the drain is spilling into their land before the water even reaches the marsh.
Ground water isn’t a factor in the situation either, as the Coutts have a dugout on their property that can be empty even when the fields are covered in a foot of water. Ideally, the water would run off into the dugout, but while the scope of the flooding is extensive, it doesn’t include the dugout area.
“The water doesn’t get to [the dugout]. We’d have to trench it and the RM has a big thing on drainage permits,” Gordon stated.
The damage and losses that the Coutts face each year because of this issue are significant. “It can take several months, well beyond the seeding deadline, before it can be farmed,” Kenny said, meaning the fields are useless.
Gordon estimated the monetary loss over the past six years, because of the flooding, to be close to $180,000. They are able to offset some of that loss by filing for crop insurance; unfortunately, they might not be able to keep doing so. If their fields continue to be consistently flooded, they could be labeled as permanent sloughs, which then makes them ineligible for crop insurance.
Adding to the financial burden is that they still have to pay full taxes to the RM on the fields that are unusable. The Coutts have asked the RM to solve the problem by building the road up to the standard foot above the dyke. The brothers believe this would prevent the water from flowing over the road into their farm.
Unfortunately, nothing has been done yet. “[The RM] was going to build our road up and it’s not going to get done now, because they say they’re out of money,” mentioned Gordon.
The fact that the RM intended to build up the road is positive news, it means that with any luck, the task will be accomplished in the near future. Unfortunately for the Coutts, until it actually happens, they’ll continue to lose crops to flooding.
