Farmers and landowners along the Portage Diversion and around Lake Manitoba continue to call for an emergency outlet from Lake Manitoba.
"We need an emergency channel out as soon as possible. The feds and the province need to get together," says Kevin Yuill, one of the farmers whose crops are submerged in water that's flowing out of the diversion's "failsafe" - a cut made in the dike to allow more water through the channel that carries water from the Assiniboine River to Lake Manitoba.
"We're taking the loss today, but ultimately I hope the province and the feds work together to get a channel out of the lake, and also treat all those that are impacted fairly," he says.
Since the similar flood scenario in 2011, the province has considered the idea of directing water from Lake Manitoba to Lake Winnipeg.
"We keep doing this over and over again without changing that," says Yuill. "Studying only goes so far. You still have to act."
He envisions a channel connecting the two large lakes through the Birch Creek outlet.
"To me it really doesn't matter where, as long as they get it done fairly quickly, and that wherever they go, they need to treat the people fairly," he says. "We haven't been treated fairly, so we're concerned about how they'll treat others as well."
Upgrades could also be made to the diversion to prevent the damage to established crops that has occurred over the last week, he says, noting there's more water flowing through the failsafe onto cropland than there is flowing through the north end of the diversion directly into Lake Manitoba.
"Most of the water from the diversion is coming out and going across our farm," says Yuill. "The north end is flawed in its design and it's silted in, so we're taking the brunt of it, but ultimately this will all end up in Lake Manitoba and flood out those around the lake."
Source: PortageOnline