Top elected officials from Saskatchewan and North Dakota gathered in Regina recently to discuss preparations for spring run-off along the Souris River.

Dustin Duncan, who is the Minister for the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority (SWA), said they discussed several issues related to the interim operating plan for the Souris in 2012, including the state of Alameda Dam.

The initial plan for this year was to not operate Alameda at its normal levels, due to concerns the dam wouldn't be able to do its job. But a couple days before the meeting, a consultant delivered an interim report that shows the dam can operate normally.

Both sides also discussed issues related to their 1989 agreement, which has governed operations of Rafferty and Alameda for more than 20 years.

“The 1989 agreement doesn't speak to rainfall events. It only contemplates a one in 100 year spring run-off flood event,” said Duncan. “That's something, longer-term, that the Souris River Board is going to look at – how can the agreement be amended to look at rainfall.”

The 1989 agreement also specifies where water levels in the dams have to be in the event of significant rainfall, such as a “once a century” rain event. But it doesn't dictate water levels for June 1.

“What we have offered to North Dakota is that by June 1, we want to be back to full supply level, so that in the event we do have a big rainfall event, like we did in the middle of June this past year, we do have some storage capacity between full supply level, and the maximum allowable the dams can hold,” said Duncan.

The two sides also agreed to examine if there is room for more storage capacity on both sides of the border, particularly Lake Darling in North Dakota.

Monitoring issues were also discussed. North Dakota has access to Saskatchewan's run-off monitoring information, but there isn't any coordination for precipitation. So the provincial will work closely with Environment Canada to monitor precipitation around the Souris River basin, so that information can be relayed quickly to the SWA and to North Dakota.

Additional meetings are planned, Duncan said. Both sides will be talking on a by-weekly basis prior to spring run-off. And they are among the entities involved with the Souris River Board, which is devising a long-term plan for operations of the dam.

Rafferty and Alameda Dams are now more than a metre below full supply level. Releases from the two reservoirs were at half a cubic metre per second until recently, when the spillways for both were closed.