REGINA – Flood water hasn’t quite come over Highway 11 near Lumsden, but it has saturated nearby fields.
“In some of my fields there would be 10 feet of water right now,” said Wayne Gienow, owner of Lincoln Gardens Corn Maiden Market.
Gienow doesn’t expect to be able to seed half of his fields this year. He knows of those he can, it will be off to a slow start to harvest the vegetables for his garden market.
“If you add up the last 5 years, the amount of time and money we lost, we probably lost a good year in revenue, just from being late, and not being able to access our property,” he said of the unusually wet trend the area has seen.
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His neighbours are also in deep water – both figuratively and literally. They might look at purchasing or renting on higher land, but that too poses problems for business.
“Then you’re looking at travel and it all adds to the expense of running the operation,” said Brock Nye, owner and operator of Scotty’s Market Garden and Greenhouse.
The site for the Craven Country Jamboree is also under a significant amount of water, but organizers are confident the dike system can handle it.
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“We’re pumping water out, and after we have the water pumped out, then it’s drying time and we have lots of time for it to dry out,” assured Kim Blevins, director of marketing for the festival.
“In the town of Lumsden, there’s been really no damage at all,” said Mayor Bryan Matheson.
The town was prepared for the worst, but even with flooded fields and roads, Matheson said he is relieved because it could have been worse. The feeling is the water has peaked and it has not hit the levels seen in 2011.
The river might see a second peak later this week from new flow from Wascana Creek, but potential devastating flooding is just water under the bridge.
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