Manitoba needs an above-average snowfall this winter to combat the effects of the summer drought on the province’s waterways.
That’s according to infrastructure minister Ron Schuler, who told 680 CJOB next spring and summer are going to be very troublesome without a good dumping of the white stuff this winter.
“For agriculture, it’s going to be a problem, and for those communities that pump water out of our streams, it’s going to be a really tough summer,” Schuler said.
“We would be hard-pressed to sustain a lot of what we do if we had the same kind of summer again we just had.
“We need this water — we depend on it. Communities like La Salle, which is one we always struggle with — even Winkler/Morden, they are at a low point going into fall.”
Schuler said Lake Manitoba is at a historic low and Lake Winnipeg is nearing historic levels as well.
“Even with all the rain, we’re barely at half of where we should be. We’re kind of facing a perfect storm with all of the dry weather and the drought we had this summer,” he said.
“We still have water flowing. The problem is the ground is basically very dry, so without above-normal snowfall, even the ground will be so dry that it just starts to suck all the moisture … and then there’s no flow into our rivers and our streams and into our lakes.”