Floods

[sumdumguy]

In all fairness, drainage probably does speed up the flow. Ask the farmers around Lampman. Guess I am glad I have a bullet-proof vest.

[farmaholic]

In 04, I bought some land that used to be owned by an uncle and farmed along side his two brothers in a loose arrangement (they helped each other farm their land...couldn't even call it a partnership). So I knew what the land was all about. Shortly after I bought it I was almost able to seed it corner to corner, knowing this won't happen very often, it has since been nicknamed , Land -o- Lakes. I lose 20 acres to sloughs riddled through out it, can't drive from one side to the other without going around a slough. We were able to reclaim large areas last fall but no guarantee it will seed them with the rest of the field. That probably isn't even bad compared to
some people's problems.

Moral...I knew what I was getting....deal with it without making it someone else's problem.

[ProFarmer]

Right now the rivers in Manitoba are low and this carryover water should be traveling down them now . Not being held back to compound the problem next spring. BBBBBut Winnipeg doesn't want any water flow this time of the year because the city folks want to use the river to skate on they say the flowing water thins the ice! if all this excess water was allowed to go down stream now nothing would be flooding and the problem would be solved. But then then there is our NDP and their bosses pledge to have the Forks water controlled year round for the city folks.

[furrowtickler]

There is a pile of earth work and drainage happening north and west of here . Will be intrresting to see how it goes .
Saskcan , is there a big drainage project out your way ? Most of this water is being diverted into the North Sask river .

[Klause]

Profarmer hit the nail on the head.


Manitoba stock piles vast amounts of water for MB Hydro... causing the lakes to rise, blaming it on ag drainage.


Honestly, in our area we have C&D projects... they were dug by trackhoe in the 70s, but if they wouldn't have been done land here wouldn't be farmable... it would be 10 acres a quarter if you could swim to it.

Iowa, Illinois... most of the US corn belt drains water - that's part of agriculture, so instead of whining about it, build levees along the rivers, put houses on high ground, and manage it.

A full slough is a full slough... and when it lets go it'll wash out and you have a lot more water going than you think. We've seen it here before... well last spring. 17 feet of water went down hill, no help from a hoe, but a 17ft deep trench left behind, and no roads for 8 miles.

[ProFarmer]

You are so right Klause, Manitoba raises the two lakes as high as possible to maintain a water volume for hydro. Manitoba government taxes Manitoba Hydro for every liter of water going through its dams as a hidden tax on all hydro users. Even the users from sask that they bitch about.

[fjlip]

WSA rules and TEETH are being written now, ALL ditches will evaluated for downstream impact. IMO if complaints are dealt with, ditches will close or be regulated with structures. If your water stays on another's land too long it costs him. No free lunch, you will be held responsible. Moral of story, you should farm at the headwaters of a creek/river, all other areas need to play/drain fairly.

[MBgrower]

Bang on profarmer. Socialist sellinger only looking for the royalities on mb hydro. Cant wait till april when we throw them out of office.

[ProFarmer]

You must be a NDP suck, pave the rest of Winnipeg over for strip malls and houses in the middle of the biggest drained slough in Canada, and must I say the best farmland in Manitoba. We are out here to farm and produce food not harbor ducks and have saline area encroach on our lively hood. I will only fill a ditch in if ws officer lies down in the bottom of it .

[ProFarmer]

my last comment is for fjilp

[jamesb]

When the sloughs are full any rain or snow melt will run water into Manitoba. This is what we are faced with today. The reeve spoken of in the early post is the new reeve one of the amalgamated rms in Manitoba. The rms in Sask close to Manitoba are literally several hundred feet higher than this Manitoba rm. This is the lower souris watershed. She would like us to "close off" our creeks flowing into Manitoba. Doesn't seem to understand if all that if culverts are blocked off all this will do is hold the water back for a short while and then the road will wash out and it all goes at once. The reality is that the undrained fields that run water from their full sloughs are the "uncontrolled drainage". I am told there is new tile drainage works being approved by Sask water and these are looked much more favorably than the open trenches as tile is and can be controlled much more easier. It is galling to have some in Manitoba be resentful of Sask drainage and one only has to go into southern Manitoba and see long term drainage works that have been around since the 1950's. Manitoba has to understand that they are going to get the water regardless of drainage or not as when the soil is at full water holding capacity and the sloughs and entire water shed is full, water is going to run downhill whether drain or not. When Minot ND flooded in 2011 there were people in Minot demanding that Canada keep her water. The water flow meter on the Souris river near Sherwood, ND recorded a volume of water flow "four times" the capacity of the raferty and alameda dams. The water is going to run downhill and no amount of recrimination will stop the flow.

[TOM4CWB]

.... true!

"no amount of recrimination will stop the flow."... or wishful thoughts... or complaints that 'Climate Change' caused it!!!

Strange world... when the world is blamed for future problems... on past innovations...[like fossil fuel advancements in tech and food production] to where we must find a new planet to live on... to turn MotherEarth back to her native state that existed... before humans changed everything!!!

What an advanced state of consciousness we have developed!!!

Happy New year... and may Climate Change make your life sweetness and light!

[grassfarmer]

I love guys that send their water onto my land. I don't let it escape. The stuff of life if you know how to capture, store and use it.

[ProFarmer]

I wish there was a way I could bottle it and send it to California.

[TOM4CWB]

Pro,

They are making the turn in CALIFORNIA;

Deep snow in California mountains offers hope in drought

Reuters
By Sharon Bernstein
December 30, 2015

Frank Gehrke walks to one of the survey points during the first snow survey of winter conducted by the California Department of Water Resources in Phillips, California, December 30, 2015. [He measured 120/58"-136/54.7" percent of normal/deep! Water content of snow in the mountains was at 105 percent of normal... the highest since 2012]

REUTERS/Fred Greaves
By Sharon Bernstein

PHILLIPS, Calif. (Reuters) - A cold, wet start to California's winter has dumped nearly five feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains, state water experts said Wednesday, fueling hope that 2016 will bring enough precipitation to help offset four years of drought.

Snow surveyors headed to the mountains in Phillips near Lake Tahoe on Wednesday for the first manual check of the state's snowpack this winter, dipping a long measuring pole into a snow-covered meadow at seven different points to see how deep the white stuff was.

"There's hope that we will have much more than we had last year," said Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program.

His measurements confirmed data gathered earlier in the month by electronic snow sensors showing that the snowpack, which provides a third of the state's water when it melts in the spring, was above normal for the first time in three years.

At the Phillips Station monitoring site, snow was 54.7 inches deep on Wednesday, or about 136 percent of average. At nearby Lyons Creek, snow was 58 inches deep, or 120 percent of average.

Statewide, electronic monitors showed that the water content of snow in the mountains was at 105 percent of normal, above average for the first time since 2012.

By comparison, the snowpack was just 20 percent of normal on Dec. 30, 2013, and 50 percent of normal on Dec. 30, 2014.

California is in its fourth year of crushing drought that has killed millions of trees and in 2015 alone cost the state's agricultural economy $1.84 billion and 10,100 jobs, according to the University of California, Davis.

The El Nino weather and oceanic phenomenon, characterized by a warming of the Pacific Ocean that often brings precipitation to California, may help ease the drought over the next few months, but experts caution that the state's woes are far from over.

A warm winter could cause snow in the mountains to melt too soon, leading to a shortage of water in the state's dry spring and summer.

So far, the snow has stuck, prompting ski resorts to open early and sending thousands to the mountains, braving long lift lines and thronging parking lots even on a Wednesday.

"This year is so much better than last year," said Duke Walton of Sacramento, who was at the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort with his family on Wednesday. "Last year, half the lifts were closed."

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)