The Reeve of La Broquerie says he is grateful for incoming changes to the provincial drainage policy.

Lewis Weiss and his council spent the beginning of their week at the Association of Manitoba Municipalities Convention in Brandon. During that time, Weiss attended a session on drainage where he found that the Manitoba Government plans on refining the way they issue permits.

“They will be speeding up the process,” comments Weiss, “and for many types of drainage you will not need permits anymore.”

For those projects that do still need provincial approval, Weiss says that too will, apparently, be done with greater efficiency. Formerly, the Reeve says it could have taken up to ten months just to get the necessary approvals for replacing a damaged culvert. Under the new policy, that same process should only take a matter of weeks. 

“It’s good news because we are a municipality that has a lot of water flowing through it," he states, "so it is very important for us to get permits in short order.”

Weiss adds that culvert repairs or replacements will need no approval at all if their height and width remain the same before and after.

According to Wiess, having the ability to improve local drainage in haste means emergencies like the extreme flooding of early fall could be better-mitigated in the future.