Cabin owners in Meeting Lake, Sask., frustrated by constant flooding

Barry and Karen Kramer pump around 10 gallons of water out of their home every 15 minutes, regardless of the season.

The retirees decided to move to their Meeting Lake, Sask., cabin in 2017 and have been dealing with rising water levels on a regular basis.

“The lake has just kept coming up every year a foot since then, and it has gotten where we’re in trouble,” Barry said.

Last week, Meeting Lake flooded after more than seven centimetres of rain and strong winds, which forced owners to sandbag and pump water off of their properties.

The Rural Municipality of Spiritwood called a local state of emergency in order to get help from the province.

However, property owners are calling for a long-term solution rather than adding to the existing temporary measure that has stayed in place for the last six years.

“We’re told the same thing, and every year, it keeps going up. It has been very stressful for us to know that at any moment we could lose our cabins,” cabin owner Wade Schmidt told Global News.

In 2014, Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency (WSA), along with cabin owners and Meeting Lake Regional Park, installed a temporary emergency berm.

The community has seen the barrier’s height raised several times since it was installed.

The agency said water levels were measured at 739 metres on May 4 — a new record for the lake.

The regional park was in contact with the WSA about raising the berms by half a metre above the spill elevation, but that work wasn’t completed before the May 20 storm.

A WSA spokesperson said initial surveying has been done, but creating an outflow would be costly.

“It looks like there would have to be significant ditching and a canal or something to be constructed. And certainly, it would have to be wide enough and low enough just based on how the area is to try to move water out,” Patrick Boyle said.

The regional park board said the berms were installed because water levels were expected to recede back to levels from the past, but that hasn’t happened.

It said the park has been looking into a controlled outflow, but the process is a long one and would be difficult.

The WSA said the lake started showing steady annual increases in water levels in 2011. 

Boyle added that the Emergency Flood Damage Reduction Program has provided more than $500,000 in grants from 16 different applications since 2014.

The Kramers and their neighbours said the extra water has caused them headaches and concern over their lakefront property.

“It’s just added stress that really, for retirement, you could live without,” Barry said.

The park board said it’s in the process of applying for disaster relief.