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Vol. 15, No. 29, Wednesday, June 17, 2020 www.LamontLeader.com
Farmers facing flooding crisis in Lamont County
An aerial shot showing fields north east of Bruderheim, around Township Road 652 and range roads 200 and 201, flooded over from the late spring thaw and recent rains. Local area farmer Neil Woitas explained he usually seeds 65 of 80 acres in this area, but that won't be happening this year. NEIL WOITAS PHOTO.
Estimates of up to 1/4 loss of seeded acreage, no memory of more water on fields BY JOHN MATHER Lamont County declared a state of agricultural disaster for itself last week following a weekend of heavy rain. Much of the County is under water from spring thaws and the ongoing rain storms. It has left many farmers in the County unable to get last year’s crops off the fields and further unable to seed for this season. For those who did get seed into the ground, the water has done a huge amount of damage. The declaration of the Agricultural Disaster was done to raise awareness with the senior levels of government of the “critical situation in Lamont County caused by a late spring thaw combined with excessive spring rains in a short time,” said a county press release. A survey conducted by Terry Eleniak, the county’s Agricultural Fieldman, estimated a 20 to 25 per cent loss of acreage that had been seeded. “It’s terrible out there,” said Agricultural Services Board chairman, Daniel Warawa. He said this was the second time he could recall the County having to declare an agricultural emer-
gency. The first occurred in 2016, he recalled, and was for drought conditions. “That was nothing like this,” he said. “This is really bad. I’ve never seen so much water on the fields in my life. “The farmers aren’t getting their seed in the fields and those who have, well some of the planted areas are now under water and that’s killing the crop.” Warawa, who farms west of Mundare, has 5,700 acres in production but he said he still has 400 acres to seed and he feels he’s in good shape. “We were able to spray for canola on Friday and wheat on Sunday,” he said. “But I don’t know about my barley. It doesn’t like water so it could be a bad season for it.” He said if it’s a bad fall with a poor harvest, many farmers won’t financially survive. And he points out the east part of the County, while saturated, is in good shape compared “to west of Chipman.” County Councillor Neil Woitas, who farms near Bruderheim, has roughly
900 acres to farm, but still has about 400 acres left to seed. Woitas took aerial photos of the area around his farm over the past weekend showing vast amounts of field under water. Warawa said he had about 80,000 bushels of crop to haul to an elevator this week, but doesn’t know how he’ll do it because the roads are so saturated he can’t get the heavy trucks into his property to haul the grain out. “Every half mile you go there’s boils on the roads,” he said. “The County had budgeted about $900,000 for all the County divisions to do road improvements, but that’s just not enough and there’s no more money.” He said with the rural roads primarily built on black dirt with gravel put on top, their age and lack of drainage have caught up with them. “I think we really have to work on a drainage program,” he said. “We have a drainage study under way, but some ditches are blocked and the water has nowhere to go but under the road and that creates the boils in the centre of the road where vehicles can get stuck.”
He hopes the study will point out blockages that can be cleaned out so the water can find its way to natural water drainage corridors which would ease the runoff. “By declaring the Agricultural State of Emergency,” he said. “It’s our plea for help to higher levels of government. We have a very, very real crisis here.” In the meantime, at 3 p.m. June 15, the State of Local Emergency that the County had declared on June 8, came to an end as it had reached the end of the seven day mark under the Emergency Management act. Regional Fire Chief and Director of Emergency Management Shayne Milliken said in a release he didn’t foresee any extraordinary measures needing to be taken in the near future. “This certainly does not undermine the disaster that some of the residents face with overland flooding,” he stated. “Daily assessments continue to be done and a State of Local Emergency can be re-declared at any time and for any location in the County whenever the criteria is met within the Act.”