Manitou Beach under state of flood emergency

It has been a dry spring overall in Saskatchewan, but some communities are still dealing with excess water this year.

Little Manitou Lake has risen to the highest levels in itsrecorded history.Eric Upshall,mayor of the village ofManitouBeach, says a combination of years of high snowfall and rain levels have saturated the soil, despite this year's lower snow pack.

Mother nature's throwing us a left hook here.- Eric Upshall, Manitou Beach Mayor

"Everything that's on top runs in, and we do have a high ground water situation, andsothere's springs running in underneath the lake. It's from above and beneath," he explained.

Upshall saidthe community started working on a permanent berm in 2010, and thentopped it up last year. But this year the water has reached the top again.

"We had a big wind storm the other night and the lake was breachingthe waves were coming over the berm, right onto the highway and into people's property," he noted. "So we had something planned and we were working on it, and fortunately that little wind showed us we're doing the right thing."

Upshall said there is a four-point plan in the community:

• The creek is lined with barriers and trap bags.
• Hesco Barriers a type of steel cage filled with gravel have been set up on the lake.
• There is a plan in place to divertwater that might draininto the lake later this year.
• Manholes and lift stations have been raisedto prevent damage to the sewer system.

"Mother nature's throwing us a left hook here," said Upshall. "And we want to make sure that residents are protected and can enjoy this lake, and the tourists who comecan still come and enjoy it as well."

'We really need two or more consecutive dry years'

The Water Security Agency saidthe areas seeing flood activity this year are near basins or terminal lakes.

Patrick Boyle told CBC water levels are so high this spring, particularly in the area north of Regina toward Manitou Beach, because of a cumulative effect over several years.

He said central and eastern parts of the grainbelt have seen several saturatingyears, and wetlands there are already full and spilling over. Now they're contributing larger amounts of water to closed basins.

What happens next depends on summer rainfall and how the next few years are in terms of moisture, he added.

"We really need two or more consecutive dry years. That would be required to shrink some of those contributing drainage areas that are causing some of these issues in the closed basins. And that would take us down to more typical levels," Boylesaid.

Even then, Boyle said basins would not return to what are considered 'normal' levels for several dry years beyond that.