MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Rene Bruemmer – “ST. PAUL DE L’ILE AUX NOIX, Que. — A fish is lying in the mud at farmer Jacquelin Bisaillon’s feet. It’s a silver-scaled carp about 30 centimetres long, and dead. Which is odd, because Bisaillon is standing three-quarters of a kilometre away from the nearest river in what should be his field of freshly planted corn.

Dealing with the worst spring flooding in 140 years along Quebec’s Richelieu River brings with it many unexpected challenges, farmers like Bisaillon are discovering, including how to pump out his flooded fields without having neighbours call the police, or being fined by Quebec’s Environment Ministry for harming carp swimming in the 4,000 hectares of farmers’ fields that are now lakes.

‘There are many problems we’ve never seen before,’ he said Sunday, standing next to the hectares of water covering his land. ‘Like trying to pump out our fields, but we can’t because the dikes holding back the river are broken, and they can’t be repaired because there’s too much water.'”  Read more.

A week of rain in forecast for Quebec flood zone – “Water levels on the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain continue to fall, but there’s concern things could stall if the skies open up. Some 3,000 homes are flooded and 1,000 people have been evacuated since heavy rains and the spring thaw swelled waterways from Montreal’s south shore to the U.S. border. Quebec’s flood forecasting centre says precipitation should hit the region on Friday and continue into next week.” Read more.