While many Saskatchewan communities were able to dry out after this year’s spring flooding, water is still at the doorsteps of Lampman in the province’s southeast.
“I’ve asked a lot of questions to some of the elders here, and in 1974 they said there was water, but nothing like this,” said Town of Lampman Administrator Greg Wallin.
It was a devastating scene: in June fields and highways flooded, with water threatening the small town.
Months later, snow and ice layer the prairie landscape. But there is a lake where there was no lake before. Roy’s Lake is usually farmland, but water has covered an area of 30 square kilometres.
“I’ve been here 21 years and I’ve seen water in Roy’s Lake before, but never to where it’s flooded roads,” Wallin explained.
Crews are working on three projects so the community does not have to endure another spring like 2011. The province has earmarked $6M for the projects.
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“One (of those projects) being the berms that are protecting Lampman from Lake Roy, a lift station to help drain the internal water out of Lampman, and also an outlet ditch that has been constructed on an emergency basis,” said Clinton Molde from the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority.
The construction work will help keep the town dry in the future, but right now there is a lot of water flowing under the ice.
“(The water) was finding its own way; it was running, but very slowly,” Wallin said. “We’re trying to speed it up so it will hopefully run through the winter.”
The Watershed Authority says it is still too early to tell what next spring will bring, but the community worries all the hard work could be for naught if heavy snow and rain ravage the area again in 2012.
“If our dam breaks, or our dyke we’ve put out there, the town would be under two or three feet of water,” Wallin said.
Lampman’s residents are trying to move forward but Wallin says it could take years for life to return to normal.
“We don’t want to see a whole bunch of snow, or we’ll have a whole bunch of run off in the spring again, and that will just make it worse,” he said.
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