The Water Security Agency and Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Agriculture and just beginning discussions with Agriculture Canada on transferring federally owned dams to the Province.

Dale Hjertaas is the Executive Director for Policy and Communications within the Water Security Agency, and says a recent Research Study on  the Province’s Ag Drainage Policy proved interesting.

"Pretty strong consensus that you should use a risk based approach, that eventually you do need to make your roles work and that means some sort of enforcement strategy. Quite a bit agreement on what should be in there, but of course lots of details still to be worked out, so we got that report, now we're taking what the people told us and working to develop what a policy and regulations might look like."

He adds they are evaluating their options and reviewing their status.

"What's the status of the dams, how important are they to the province. There are a number of them and some are much more important than others' overall water management, and most of them are in the southwest. Some have been rebuilt quite recently, and some I think are quite old. They all have been there for a long time, but some of the works are rehabilitated quite recently and are in good shape, and others are not."

The federal government has indicated they’d like to transfer everything they have, however, he says that doesn’t mean the Province wants them adding they have to decide if it’s in the benefit of Saskatchewan taxpayers to take on these costs.

The Water Security Agency is also doing Water Quality Assessments at Lake Diefenbaker and the South Saskatchewan River.