By Chris Jaster
The Saskatchewan Watershed Authority is still researching and writing reports detailing the causes of the flood that hit Maple Creek on June 18, but it may come down to what the town didn’t do after 1998.
Gord Hagen, supervisor of operations for Swift Current Watershed Authority’s operations division, said Maple Creek needs improved channel capacity through the town to avoid another severe flood, and the Watershed Authority made that recommendation after the town flooded 12 years ago.
“After that point I spoke to town council about doing some work in the area,” said Hagen, who deemed the 1998 flood to be a one-in-500-year event. “You also have to appreciate that there’s a lot of competition for a council’s dollars and their capacity to undertake their works. They’re left with a situation of do they improve the channel capacity and offer flood protection for a one-in-500-year event, which in theory could happen once in 500 years, or do you build a new civic centre or new school or improve the sidewalks or whatever.”
“You can see where the urgency of providing that flood protection gets channeled off in other directions.”
Hagen talked to Maple Creek’s administrator, Mark Caswell, about getting back on track for the Watershed’s plan earlier this year, but Mayor Barry Rudd doesn’t believe that was the reason the damage was so bad in June’s flood.
The town commissioned and paid for a long-term flood plain report about three years ago and got the results this spring. It found the best way Maple Creek could avoid another flood like the one in June is by eliminating some of the weaving the creeks do. Rudd knows that won’t sit will with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which means the Watershed Authority will need a new plan to avoid a disaster like the one Maple Creek suffered this year.
“The Watershed is good at sloughing off stuff like that and saying they didn’t do that and that’s why it flooded,” said Rudd. “In that report that we paid for and that we commissioned, there were two things in there that they were committing. That was one of them. The other was clean the creek up a little and get the willows out. That’s done now.
“They’re the ones that put the spillway in there and built the dam four feet higher, which contributed to Maple Creek flooding too as bad as it did because the water level’s up four feet and it backs up to Maple Creek. That’s why our storm sewers wouldn’t drain because they drain into the creek. Well, when the water level comes up there’s nowhere for the water to go.” 
Rudd also has a problem with the Watershed Authority’s risk management. He thinks their math must be wrong since Maple Creek was hit with a one-in-500-year flood in 1998 and a one-in-1,000-year flood in June (according to Saskatchewan Watershed Authority).
For Maple Creek’s mayor, the solution to avoid floods in the future doesn’t lie in the channel capacity, it lies in putting in a canal dike from the hills south of town along the creek to keep the water running north and diverting it from town.
Rudd understands that would be a major project that may need a payment partnership between the federal, provincial and municipal governments, but he thinks it would be cheaper than having the governments have to fork out cash to clean up floods in Maple Creek.
“Yes, we don’t see (12.5 inches of rain) very often, but do we want $40 million of damage? Do we want to go through this again? Does the government want to spend all this again?” he asked. “There’s probably another $40 million for government response and the man hours the government has to put into it for emergency money. That’s $80 million and I think we could dig a pretty good canal for $80 million and the watershed wouldn’t have to worry about sloughing it off on somebody else and saying we’re not responsible.”
“Hopefully the government will work with us at a higher level. We don’t want to deal with people with Watershed. I mean, we will deal with them, but we don’t want Watershed bureaucrats out here telling us why we can’t do it. We want people out here to tell us how we can work together to achieve the goal and make sure it doesn’t happen again and then we don’t have to worry about the one in 500s as well.”
The Watershed Authority’s official reports are expected to come out later this year.