Flood-damaged roads a worry for Manitoba farmers looking to harvest

Rural roads damaged by spring flooding are causing problems for farmers.

Eric Sabourin works on a farm a few kilometres east of St. Jean Baptiste. He's been forced to use his large truck to commute as the roads around the farm were damaged earlier this year.

"SUVs, we keep them parked," said Sabourin. "We don't even use them anymore because we'll completely destroy the front end."

Flood debris still lines Provincial Road 217 -- a well-used route for farmers in the area.

Sabourin said a grader did go over it the other day, but ruts and potholes are still proving to be a problem, especially when it rains.

"When we were doing herbicide spraying, we couldn't even use our water trucks on the road," explained Sabourin.

"We have to park the water trucks a mile away where the road is decent and then bring the sprayer up to the water truck, fill it up, and go back to the field because it's just not passable."

Sabourin now worries his and his neighbors' harvest will be impacted by the roads if they aren't fixed soon.

"If this road isn't passable, we won't be able to bring our crop to the farm, and everyone, like the neighbours, do this row during harvest, gets used quite a bit," he said.

The RM of Montcalm said it's received complaints about the roads and has put signage at problem spots.

It said it can't repair them until the province approves the municipality's Disaster Financial Assistance (DFA) claim.

"So that makes it quite difficult because otherwise, we'd be spending millions of dollars to fix them and no guarantee of reimbursement, so we think there's a bit of a problem with that program," said Paul Gilmore, the municipality's reeve.

Gilmore said the RM has sent photos and videos to the province and would like to see something done quicker as it waits for DFA approval.

A lengthy process that has farmers like Sabourin waiting.

"By this time, two and a half months later, it should get done," said Sabourin, "We're not asking for a paved road. We're asking it to be passable with trucks which will have to pass in a couple weeks."

CTV News has reached out to the province for comment.