The water level of the Rat River is still too high, even after the state of emergency several municipalities called in March were lifted.

Jodi Goerzen is the Executive Director for the Seine-Rat River Conservation District. Goerzen says there is still unusable agricultural land along the river and there is also increased nutrient runoff into the local watersheds and Lake Winnipeg.

"That's one of the things that we're always looking at when the farmers need to fertilize," noes Goerzen referring to nutrient runoff. "They need to apply [fertilizers] onto their land and you want to be doing that when the weather conditions are good and fairly dry so that when the water does fall from the sky and falls into the ground, it absorbs down into the ground rather than running off. That's better for the farmers, better for the water, better for everyone."

She adds there was a high water table in the fall and the ground saturation level didn't go down but became higher in spring with snowmelt and rainfall, which attributed to the overland flooding and high river levels.

"So, you have a lot more runoff and you've got a lot more flooding issues that have happened, a lot more impacts on your local infrastructure, your roads, your bridges, and your culverts. It makes it really difficult to start the farming season and get everything up and working like it normally does at this time of year."

Goerzen says there are a lot of ways to reduce peak flooding and water flowing off the land including water retention and storage options, something, she notes, the Seine-Rat River Conservation District is working on with farmers.

"Basically, that's a farmer willing to partner with us to allow the wet spot in their land to stay there a little bit longer, even for two or three days longer than normal; by doing that you're actually reducing a lot of the impact to the local waterway, on your local infrastructure and also to Lake Winnipeg."

She says it's anyone's guess as to when the water will start to recede, especially with more rain in the forecast, but hopes to see it go down soon.

Meanwhile, the Seine-Rat River Conservation District is having an educational watershed tour on June 16 to educate the public about water retention projects and the work the conservation district is doing to help reduce peak flooding and nutrient loading to other waterways.