For the first time, since water taking restrictions were put in place, 25 farmers, most of them growing potatoes, have been informed by the provincial department of the environment, labour and justice that they might not be able to continue irrigating if the creeks get any lower.
“This year has been a fairly dry year in P.E.I. and we are starting to see some of the levels get very close to this maintenance level,” Sean Ledgerwood, a provincial watershed specialist, told the Star Monday.
According to reports, rainfall on P.E.I. since May 1 is less than half the average.
“We sent some letter out to the farmers saying be aware that we are getting close. It’s just giving them a heads up … and that if it continues to go down we may say that they can’t irrigate anymore from the streams,” he said.
About four years ago, the ministry put in automated stations with probe in the streams that uploads information right to a website so the farmers can see how much water there is and whether their irrigation is in jeopardy.
“If it rains a lot over the next week it may not become an issue,” Ledgerwood said. “These farmers, as part of their permit, they always knew this was a possibility.
But that makes it no less a bitter pill to swallow.
Potato farmer Greg McKenna, who grows 200 hectares in the Emerald area, said he could lose half his crop, if forced to stop irrigating.
“Right now we know we're going to be lucky if we even break even,” McKenna told CBC.
”We've got two buyers, Cavendish Farms and McCain (Foods), they depend on us to give them a good product. They employ a lot of people, we employ a lot of people, and there's a balancing act involved here I think,” said McKenna, who spent $750,000 on irrigation equipment.
“When we need the water the most seems to be the point in time where we're going to get cut off,” he said.
