Although it will be awhile before the flood waters completely recede, the outflows into the Souris River are declining.
The provincial government held its final conference call on the flood situation throughout Saskatchewan Monday and provided an update on the status of the Boundary and Rafferty Dam Reservoirs.
Dale Hjertaas of the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority said as of Monday, the combined outflow from the reservoirs into the Souris River were 165 cubic metres per second. The bulk of that figure - 160 m3/s - was from Rafferty while the remaining five m3/s were flowing out of Rafferty. Last week the SWA had actually stopped flows from Boundary but the reservoir has since filled up again, necessitating the discharge.
"The discharge from Rafferty has continued to decline due to the falling reservoir level," Hjertaas said. "It was 210 m3/s on July 1 so it is continuing to trend down and will continue to trend down."
Hjertaas noted that Rafferty is still one metre above its full supply level but added it does have roughly two and a half metres of flood storage.
"There is now some capacity in Rafferty to withstand a fair degree of rainfall so barring another really major event, we are not expecting to have to increase flows. Of course if we get three or four inches of widespread rain again then we may be right back to where we were a couple weeks ago."
Looking to the future, Hjertaas said hydrologists with the SWA are continuing to study the local situation and will issue a report this week detailing their plans to manage the outflows.
However, in the immediate future, the focus will remain on returning the Souris River to within in its banks and reducing the levels on Rafferty.
"Obviously we would like to get the flow down into channel capacity, but we also want to get the reservoirs down to their full supply level, both Rafferty and Alameda," Hjertaas said. "They are both still above (full supply level). They provide the most flood security if another (rainfall) event happens.
"But there is a tradeoff between those two. The longer you leave it high, the sooner you can sustainably get down to the channel capacity. Those are the two objectives, to get the level down and we would like to have the capacity to absorb a modest (rainfall) without having to push the flows back up. I think everybody is tired of the water going back up again."
Hjertaas was also asked if the authority has been happy with how it has handled the 2011 flood situation and if there were plans for a review. He touched on the latter question, noting there would indeed be a review.
"It would be good practice to go back over major events like this and see what you learned," he said. "With hindsight, we'll be able to see if only we'd know we were going to have five flood peaks in the Souris we could have done something but that is not the question, the question is, did you manage well considering the circumstances at the time. That is a question for a little ways down the road when we have times to review our operations."
As the water situation has improved, so too has the accessibility of local roads. Highway 18 to Torquay reopened over the Canada Day long weekend, restoring access to those west of Estevan and also to employees of the Boundary Dam Power Station who had been taking a detour to get to work.
A section of Highway 47 north of Benson was closed as of press time for the installation of a culvert and although there was water running over Highway 39 near Macoun, the road had not been closed.
The only road still closed as of press time was Highway 47 south where the abutments to the bridge running over the Souris River had both washed out.
"There was actually a pretty significant portion of the road washed out on the north side from the bridge back," said Doug Wakabayashi with the Ministry of Highways. "It was about 10 metres on the downstream side of the highway where the water was flowing over the road.
"They drove in some sheet piles to deflect the water away from the road and filled in the washout with what is called pit run and added gravel on top of that. We are hoping to have that open later this week."
