The heavy rain events that have marked this past summer have only re-emphasized to Rhineland council about the need for a better designed municipal drainage system.

The municipality is still trying to absorb the three inches of rain that fell on the region last Sunday. That rainfall raised local creeks and ditches to the brim and made dirt roads and low level crossings impassable.

"With the creeks being so high, nearby yards and some of the villages have been threatened because the water levels have come so high and the drains don't work very well," said Rhineland reeve Don Wiebe.

Wiebe says the municipality has four or five areas that are considered hot spots when excessive rains hit the area including land along the Aux Marais system, in the New Hope area, a couple of areas south and west of Plum Coulee and right up to the Village of Reinland.  

"Some of the problems we're having include excessive vegetation in the drain such as bulrushes. That can really impede drainage and that's one of the reasons why there have been some flash floods on yards that are close to creeks."

Reeve Don Wiebe says the municipality is looking at redesigning some of their drains to better handle excessive precipitation.

"We're hoping we will get back to normal rainfall patterns which would make things a little easier to deal with. There has been a lot of crop damage this year and we hope that we can mitigate some of that by working hard at developing a more effective drainage system. Overall, there are a lot of situations where our drainage works well, but there are areas where water has accumulated and drains don't work fast enough, which results in lots of water in the fields."

Wiebe admits there are no simple solutions to improving drainage in some of these localities.

"We're in the process of engaging the services of a hydrologist to help assess the situation and redesign some of the drains so that they're constructed better, and don't simply transport a problem somewhere else."