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Project nearly 40 years in the making becomes reality

Dec 16, 2017 | 11:09 AM

The Beardy’s and Okemasis Cree Nation is no stranger to flooding; their woes began in 1904.

In 1907 a culvert was constructed to help combat the flood waters in the community, however, it didn’t quite hold up over the years. In response, community leaders started to devise plans to upgrade the culvert to get more water to flow and create sufficient drainage in 1980.

And Friday, after forty-one renditions and some 37 years later, the band’s plans are soon to be implemented.

“We’ve dealt with this for well over 100 years,” Brian Seeseequasis, who’s overseen the project for the last 10 years, said. “It’s taken us that long to finally get the issue dealt with because this drainage ditch was not sufficient.”

Plans are in the works to direct water to the South Saskatchewan River and Chante Lake. The current ditch connected two low-land areas north of the reserve and flowed naturally to the Saskatchewan River. Seeseequasis said the way the culverts upstream were constructed and the amount of water flowing through the ancient ditch, was like trying to get a river to flow into a garden hose.

The ditch in question is less than a kilometre away from the band office. Over the years, due to the way the ditch was constructed, the Beardy’s and Okemasis Cree Nation has lost thousands of acres of farm and agriculture land.

“It’s going to take a number of years to get back to being able to farm it,” Beardy’s and Okemasis Chief Roy Petit said. “The 9,000 acres of farmland we’ll be able to recuperate, that’s a lot of lease money that we’ve lost from our income… We look forward to having that back.”

According to project engineer Don Poon from SAL Engineering, flooding had also limited emergency service access to the community. The upgrade will look to quell these concerns, according to Poon, who made note the upgrade work will be monitored by engineers following construction.

“This is a great improvement, but not the end of all things because we don’t know the flooding [patterns] or what the weather will be like,” Poon said. “We will continue working with the band to evaluate whether this is going to perform as intended, or we need to make further improvements if there’s more moisture coming in.”

Poon said the project has passed through numerous environmental assessments to ensure houses in Duck Lake or Highway 11 would not flood after the work is complete. Five to six kilometres of channel will be under construction – the total length of the ditch which runs through Beardy’s.

“Beyond the reserve is not the band’s jurisdiction. [Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada] would not fund [construction], so our work starts at the boundary of the reserve,” Poon said. “The RM [of Duck Lake] is also very helpful to make sure we coordinated this project so that we have one drainage channel to the river.”

Poon said 80 to 90 percent of the project’s employees will be residents of the Cree Nation.

Though a portion of the ditch runs under Highway 212 – the main road through Beardy’s – Seeseequasis said construction will only affect traffic for a brief period of time after it officially begins in January 2018. Construction is expected to be complete in time for the annual melt in March.

 

 

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas