Flooding and drainage remain some of the most contentious issues in Manitoba, with agricultural producers often bearing the economic cost of poor or inconsistent decisions.
In Wet Prairie, Shannon Stunden Bower attempts to place into an historical context the various influences on the development of drainage in Manitoba. The historical attempts to rationalize drainage policy have been superimposed on a landscape that has a far greater hydrologic and ecological diversity than is generally recognised, and where the regular square pattern of land ownership is at odds with the natural pattern of drainage. The book chronicles how these influences have ranged from attracting and retaining new immigrants to the more recent movement of applying a more environmentally responsible and holistic approach to drainage planning within Conservation Districts. In the early days of the province, drainage was an important mechanism for the province to assume ownership of land from the federal government, thereby providing a potential source of income for the fledgling province. This economic motivation sometimes resulted in decisions that were not based on proper scientific assessments of the impact of drainage and, in some cases, such as the Big Grass Marsh, led to disastrous financial and ecological consequences.
Manitoba's prairies are subject to extremes in terms of water availability. Drought conditions can rapidly transition to flood conditions within a few short weeks. Land that appeared fertile and well drained when selected for homesteading, could be quickly revealed as little better than swamp land when normal precipitation patterns resumed. This resulted in political pressure to provide artificial drainage as farmers faced a loss of livelihood.
In a similar fashion, the topography, soils and settlement patterns of the province challenged the planning and design of drainage. Water from the better naturally drained upland areas must cross the low gradient, but extremely fertile lake plain, to reach the rivers that drain agro Manitoba. However, this drainage came at a cost, with more frequent downstream flooding within the low lying areas. This was a recipe for conflict. Up until today, the arguments for and against drainage have tended to pit downstream landowners, who are against improved upstream drainage, against upstream producers.
It is interesting to note that the watershed has been suggested for over 100 years as the logical unit for water or drainage planning, but this boundary has generally failed to be accepted when it conflicts with other artificial boundaries such as municipalities. This is documented several times over the historical period covered in Wet Prairie. From personal experience, I know that when the concept of planning based on watersheds was promoted within the Manitoba Water Resources Branch in the 1980s it was accepted in principle by senior management, but failed in application due to a perceived lack of funding and manpower.
The funding of drainage works is a recurring theme in Wet Prairie, as various levels of governments have struggled to find sufficient resources to meet the demands for drainage by stakeholders. This continues until today as farmers, both as individuals and as groups lobbying through municipal governments, generally view the current drainage systems as inadequate. This perception is reinforced during wet periods when structural inadequacies and the lack of maintenance are revealed through localized flooding and crop failures.
If there is a shortcoming to Stunden Bower's work, it is that the attempts to place the development of drainage policies into the context of various political theories of management (i.e., small L liberalism, the role of the state, etc.) are distracting and tend to cloud an interesting narrative of the motivation behind the development of drainage policy. As a result, Wet Prairie sometimes reads too much like an academic work to attract the wider audience who could benefit from understanding the historical context in which drainage professionals conduct their current work. The number of references in the book, while appropriate for a thesis, is excessive.
There are also discrepancies in some of the facts presented in the book. An example is the statement that the Peguis First Nation was relocated to the eastern shores of Lake Winnipeg. The Peguis community was actually relocated to land along the Fisher River in Manitoba's Interlake where it continued to endure chronic flood problems. The Peguis Community is a microcosm for understanding the many issues and conflicts presented in Wet Prairie, including jurisdictional conflicts, the perception that upstream (highland) drainage has increased flooding problems within the community, and the lack of funding historically provided by the federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
Wet Prairie is a well referenced documentation of the policies that have shaped the artificial drainage imposed on the Manitoba landscape. Although there have been previous publications on drainage standards in Manitoba, there has been a lack of information on the development of drainage policy. Wet Prairie, with its accompanying references, could be an important resource for professionals in the water management or planning fields.