The potential for a high spring runoff has the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority (SWA) preparing for the worst.
As part of that preparation, the SWA announced two weeks ago that Waldsea Lake Regional Park is being decommissioned and that water from Deadmoose Lake, located to the northeast of Waldsea,will be allowed to drain into Waldsea, likely overflowing Waldsea's banks.
While the cabin owners and board members at WLRP were not happy about the announcement, most of them are preparing their cabins to be moved.
But there is another group of people who will be drastically affected by the rising water - the agricultural landowners around Waldsea, Deadmoose, and Houghton lakes.
Myles Kalthoff, who owns land around all three of those lakes, is one of those affected by the high water. He received a letter from the SWA last week that told him he will have a lot of land under water this spring.
Kalthoff lost approximately 800 acres last year, mostly land between Waldsea and Deadmoose, and the recent letter from the SWA suggests he will likely lose another 800 acres this year.
Kalthoff believes that the closure of the culvert under Grid 777 has greatly contributed to the flooding.
That road is a barrier between Houghton Lake and Lenore Lake to the north. There is a culvert under the road, but it has been closed for the past year, thanks to an order from the federal Department of Environment. The letter states that water flow from Houghton, a saline lake, will be harmful to the fish in Lenore Lake, a freshwater lake.
While the SWA is fighting that order in court, they are following the order. At a recent meeting in Humboldt, the SWA said that they do not expect a ruling on the case until after spring runoff.
Kalthoff is upset that he is losing a large part of the land he has worked his whole life to accumulate and farm, including his farmyard on the northwest side of Waldsea. A lot of the land has been in the family for 100 years or more, he noted.
"They say they are going to pay for it, but basically they are just taking it," he said of the SWA.
Kalthoff says the SWA basically expropriated the land between Waldsea and Deadmoose last year. Even though they put a berm between the two lakes, the ground there wasn't usable, he explained.
Land not far from his farmyard sold for $1,000 an acre last year, Kalthoff said. But he hasn't had anything close to that offered by the SWA for the land he lost last year and what he's going to lose this year.
According to Kalthoff's understanding, the SWA is predicting lake levels at Waldsea will go up between eight and 17 feet this spring.
Kalthoff is mostly concerned about his home quarter. He farmed most of the land there last year except for a small space in the southeast corner. The SWA map he received with his letter predicts that about half of the home quarter will be under water this spring, coming very close to his yard.
"You just can't go in there and pick up 30 to 40 granaries, and the house and the shop," he said. "It's not as easy as moving a cabin. And where would you move it?"
Since the flooding in 2007, Kalthoff has lost seven and a half miles of fence, five dugouts, and acres and acres of land. In 2006, he had a herd of 125 cattle, but he's down to 45 this year and will have to sell those as well.
"I don't have anywhere to pasture them," he said.
The SWA did offer to help him move the cows to a community pasture - either one near Crystal Springs north of St. Benedict or one at Pathlow north of St. Brieux - but he doesn't believe that is a viable solution. Both those pastures are about an hour away and he's not sure how long the cows would have to stay there.
"That water is going to be there for a long time," Kalthoff said. "Waldsea is a closed basin and there's nowhere for it to flow out. The only way that water leaves is through evaporation."
As well, since Waldsea, Deadmoose and Houghton are considered saline lakes, Kalthoff doesn't think any of the farmland under water will be any good even if the water levels go down.
Kalthoff believes that the only solution to stop or slow down the flooding is to open the culvert under Grid 777 so the water can follow the natural flow northward.
"And it would help if we didn't get 40 inches of rain this year," he added with a smile.
Kalthoff and 18 other farm families with land around the lakes are talking to everyone they can think of, including MP Brad Trost and MLA Donna Harpauer's offices, to try to save their land and their livelihood.
"If we have to relocate the yard,... I can't fathom that," Kalthoff said. "I'm not ready to move."
