Farmers in the Rural Municipality of St. Andrews are hoping the ground dries up fast before this year’s growing season becomes a write-off. “[Those are] cattails under good productive farmland, and there will probably be more here in a couple weeks,” said Allan Olinyk, who farms in the area. Olinyk has watched floodwater from mid-June drown part of this year’s soybean crop. Algae has formed in one of his fields, where more than 100 acres were wiped out by the rainfall. “We had it seeded corner to corner here; there’s 180 acres here that were seeded, and as we’re standing behind here, I would say about half of it is wiped out here,” he said. “It’s devastating to see this, definitely.” Weeks later, much of that water hasn’t gone anywhere. “This field behind us over here has been underwater for six weeks and it should be long gone already,” said John Preun, who farms near Olinyk. “Part of the reason is the failing infrastructure, and this storm showed us how fragile it really is.” Preun and Olinyk both farm near Parks Creek, which flows into the Red River. They say the water has been stagnant for weeks and that the culvert in the area hasn’t drained properly in a decade. Both are frustrated the issue wasn’t addressed sooner by the RM and the province. “It’s an issue for all of us, I agree with the farmers, we’ve got to move water, but we all have to move together, federal, provincial,” said Brent Olynyk, chief administrative officer for the RM of St. Andrews. Olynyk said the municipality declared a state of emergency last month and filed for disaster financial assistance. He said repairs and remediation will take time. “We’ve been repairing roads, we’ve been taking out culverts that were there, we’ve been upsizing them where possible,” he said. In a statement, a provincial spokesperson said staff have been meeting with affected municipalities and will be in contact with local officials — including the RM of St. Andrews and Mayor Joy Sul — to better understand local drainage challenges and develop a path forward. “We are committed to supporting farmers and communities through this difficult time while strengthening our approach to responding to future extreme weather events,” the statement said in part. Curtis McRae, who also farms in the municipality, estimates his losses in the tens of thousands of dollars. “Just in the field behind us, there’s a good $100,000 to $120,000 that we lost,” he said. Canola farmers like McRae are already cutting their losses. “End of July, we’re getting to the real reality of what happened,” he said. “Now I’m tilling up what should have been a real field, a beautiful field to be harvesting, and now it’s getting grounded into dirt and getting ready for next year.”
