County of Two Hills Declares Agricultural State of Disaster

County of Two Hills Declares Agricultural State of Disaster

Michelle Pinon News Advertiser

The County of Two Hills has declared an Agricultural State of Disaster.

The declaration came during the Aug. 19 council meeting. According to County of Two Hills Agricultural Fieldman Eldon Kozak, there has been extensive and continuous rain and flooding in certain areas of the county this spring and summer.

Kozak told members of council, “There will be some hardships at harvest time.” He went on to say some producers are facing “serious financial hardship” as a result of the flooding.

Reeve Don Gulayec said it doesn’t cost anything to acknowledge that producers are having hard times. He said it was also a way of showing their support for producers. The rest of council were in agreement and passed a motion to that effect.

Kozak said there has been flooding in May, June, and July. “Some of it’s still going on now,” added Kozak, who had been out inspecting a road underwater, this week. “We still have overland flooding,” Kozak said most of the flooding is west of Secondary Highway 857, and north and south of Secondary Highway 45. “Virtually everybody west of 857 that way is affected in some way, shape, or form.”

Normally it costs between $200-300 per acre to seed a crop, and Kozak said if they lose $400-600 per acre the losses can add up quickly. That also applies to hay, which normally sells for between $60 and $100 per bale.

“When the county declares an ag. disaster that does not trigger any kind of financial relief whatsoever. It’s more or less to raise awareness and make the provincial government aware of the hardships these people are facing. If the province declares an ag. disaster provincially then that’s where you see some financial assistance whether it be crop insurance or whatever is controlled by the Alberta Government. Farmers would perhaps be able to see some financial relief then.

As to why the county didn’t declare an ag. disaster sooner? Kozak said, “We were hoping that some of this water would run off the land and that it wouldn’t be quite as severe as it was. It seems like every couple of weeks those folks out there get some significant rainfall events, and then we’re back to spring-like conditions where we have overland flooding for short periods of time.

When they get rains of four to six inches in one event when the ground is saturated, it doesn’t take much rainfall to affect seeded crops, hay, and yards. Shelterbelt trees are dying. For those people affected it is quite serious.”

The county has been supporting producers in several ways, added Kozak, “By keeping the waterways open as best we could. Opening plugged culverts and replacing damaged culverts. We’re trying to do what we can on the municipal right of ways to help these folks out. We don’t have the staff, the means, or the authority to go on private land and just start randomly trenching.

We’ve had a trapper working since spring and we’ve had two or three backhoes going all day every day doing culvert installs and repairs. We’ve had a couple of bridge files we’re working on so that water has been a serious headache for both ratepayers and the municipality.”

Producer Gerald Hill, along with about a dozen other farmers have been severely affected by the flooding.

He said the area of the flooding is mostly within a seven-mile radius, west of Secondary Highway 857, between Township Road 550 and 540. Hill, who owned 10 quarter sections in the area, said he had 352 acres that could not be seeded, and lost another 70 acres of seeded canola at the end of July due to flooding. From mid-May up until last Saturday, he has recorded 24 inches of rain.

“There are a lot of us who farm near Spring Creek.” Compounding the situation is the fact that some of Hill’s neighbours are illegally draining their sloughs, which in turn has flooded out many more acres of his land. “Most of my hay is underwater.” He estimates two to three feet of standing water which equates to a loss of 200 acres.

Altogether, he estimates his loss of crops to be in the range of $150,000 to $180,000; which does not include his hay. Hill said producers with cattle are in a dire situation because they either have to move them off pasture and feed them hay or have them eat another type of crop. Hill said that if the vegetation along the creek had been maintained a lot of the flooding would not have occurred.