Persistent dry conditions this summer have led the Pembina Valley Water Co-op (PVWC) and its 14 member municipalities to declare a State of Drought Emergency due to low water levels on the Red River. The declaration, effective Wednesday, July 28th, comes following a meeting a day prior that included Manitoba Agriculture and Resource Development as well as Manitoba Emergency Measures Organization.
"From June 25th to July 23rd, a twenty-eight day period, the flow in the Red River was reduced from 1,532 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 752 cfs. So, it's been reduced by half in a month," explained PVWC C.E.O., Greg Archibald. During this same period, Environment and Climate Change Canada reports the water level on the Red River at Emerson went down 20.5 inches, from 748.287 ft down to 746.578 ft above sea level.
The situation, says Archibald, has forced the PVWC to change the way it pumps water from the Red River into its Letellier treatment plant.
"There's no head to be able to pull the water, so we've got portable pumps set up at the Letellier plant intake area, and we're pumping into the wet well and then transferring back into the plant from there. The intake is now showing above water at that location," explained Archibald, noting there are rocks showing across a considerable area of the river at an intake location further south near the Letellier bridge. "So, this is very significant."
As a result, the PVWC is requesting all member municipalities to go into the Severe Restriction Stage, and cut water consumption by 15 per cent.
Additionally, officials are coordinating in what Archibald says is an "All in it together" effort to combat the shortage.
"We're investigating all kinds of other options of where we could store water and where we could get water at this time," added Archibald. Currently, he says the pond at the Letellier plant has about a month-and-a-half supply, and the pond at the Morris plant has about six months of raw water.
According to Archibald, forecasters in the United States are expecting the drought situation to continue into September. If that's the case, he says the PVWC is going to run into another problem heading into freeze-up.
"If the level stays low and it begins to freeze, there's not enough room for the ice and the water to exist underneath it," he explained, noting this scenario would see all of the water that's left in the Red River freeze from top to bottom and again cut off intake capabilities.
While the on-going dry summer has people comparing it to conditions experienced in the 1980s, Archibald says river flows on the Red aren't as bad just yet, but he noted the high temperatures continue to persist.
"The documents I saw, in the eighties they had a little bit of rain in the fall that helped a little bit," said Archibald, noting the big question now is what's going to happen this year? "If the U.S. forecasters are correct, and we stay the course with drought temperatures through the end of September, then it could look more like a drought in the thirties."