Don Cruikshank demonstrates how field runoff water samples are collected.

VIDEO: Touring the ebbs and flows on the Manitoba Escarpment, Part Two

Monitoring stations and water filtration systems further research in south Tobacco Creek watershed

Years of research by the Deerwood Soil and Water Management Association have given it a broad understanding of what’s been happening in the south Tobacco Creek watershed. Under its guidance, the project has been adjusted for a variety of conventional and modern agricultural practices in order to measure how each differently impacts water quality throughout the cycle. The

VIDEO: Touring the ebbs and flows on the Manitoba Escarpment, Part One

VIDEO: Touring the ebbs and flows on the Manitoba Escarpment, Part One

Deerwood Soil and Water Management Association studying effects of soil erosion, flooding

The Deerwood Soil and Water Management Association is known for its innovative conservation work on the Manitoba Escarpment’s south Tobacco Creek watershed, a little over 110 km southwest of Winnipeg. Provided with funding from all levels of government and farmer-land owners, the association has built small dams to slow runoff and reduce soil erosion and


A field of hay was under water within hours after there was an intentional breach on the west side of the Portage Diversion July 4. It would have been the first hay harvested from the field since 2010. Local landowners want help.  Photo: Sandi Knight

Hazy disaster aid outlook for flooded farmers

There are ongoing discussions, but no action for producers still seeking compensation for 2012 flooding

Contrary to reports last week, governments have not ruled out additional assistance through AgriRecovery for flooded Prairie farmers, an official with Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz’s office said Monday. However, it’s not officially on the table either — at least not yet. The minister’s office was busy trying to clarify reports emerging from a July 18

Worthwhile trade-off

New drainage and water management initiatives announced earlier this month will make it easier for Manitoba farmers to drain low spots in their fields, but harder — much harder — to convert wetlands into annual crop production. It may seem like a nuanced distinction and it will undoubtedly make many in the farming community nervous


Conservation and Water Stewardship Minister Gord Mackintosh reveals the province’s new surface water management strategy.

Changes to drainage regulations on tap

Government is promising an end to red tape for farmers looking to complete minor drainage works, 
while increasing fines for illegal drainage

Manitoba farmers will be consulted on changes to drainage licensing as part of the province’s plan to restore Lake Winnipeg and better prepare for periods of drought and flooding. Conservation and Water Stewardship Minister Gord Mackintosh revealed the province’s new surface water management strategy in Winnipeg last week, which allocates $320 million to the initiative

Get used to it?

Just as water and climate expert Bob Sandford began his keynote address at a Winnipeg conference about water management last week, he received a text from his son back home in Canmore, Alta. It was about a river gone wild. As Sandford spoke on the science of why weather patterns are becoming more turbulent, resulting


Culross farmer Carl Classen has partnered with the LaSalle Redboine Conservation District to build a reservoir to collect and store run-off from a half section and then put it back on his land later. Classen benefits from improved drainage, nutrient retention and the potential for small-scale irrigation. If a lot more farmers did the same less phosphorus would end up in Lake Winnipeg, there’d be less strain on the provincial drainage system and reduced flooding.

On-farm reservoirs good for the environment and farmers’ pocketbook too

A pilot project near Elm Creek is testing an on-farm reservoir as an economic way to ease the threat of flooding and reduce nutrient losses into Lake Winnipeg

Like most farmers in the Red River Valley, Carl Classen sometimes has too much water on his fields, then not enough. But he has a two-pronged solution: Improve drainage to get water off his land faster, but instead of sending it downstream to potentially flood someone else, he’s storing it in a reservoir to irrigate

Provincial control structure on Tobacco Creek. photos: submitted

Reflecting on the flood that didn’t happen

After dire predictions and many preparations on both sides of the border, citizens have started breathing a huge sigh of relief. Unless we receive very large levels of precipitation in the coming days, the threat of flooding seems to have been alleviated. Some of us are just relieved; others are asking why the forecasts were


A municipal worker points to where unusually fast water flows washed out a culvert upstream from the Von Bargen farmyard.

Ranchers hit by wall of water demand post-flood answers

 Sitting as it does on a kind of plateau north of the highlands of Riding Mountain National Park, it’s hard to believe that this area could be flooded at all. But a flash flood did sweep through the century-old farmyard of cattle producers Karen and Craig Von Bargen on April 28 — causing six-figure losses

Storm clouds hover over the Arabian Sea in the southern Indian state of Kerala. India’s monsoon rains may arrive on the southern Kerala coast around June 3, a late debut that will raise fears any revival for drought-hit tracts of southern and western farmland could be delayed. photo: REUTERS/Sivaram

The Bonn Declaration

The following is the full text of a declaration released following a conference of 500 leading water scientists who attended the “Water in the Anthropocene” conference earlier this month in Bonn, Germany. In the short span of one or two generations, the majority of the nine billion people on Earth will be living under the