'The wrong spot': Lac Pelletier residents say cattle operation threatens quality of life, environment

Just half an hour south of Swift Current, Sask., the flat prairie land dips into a valley and the wide-open skies give way to Lac Pelletier, a spring-fed lake that once featured a Metis settlement, a dancehall and a cave where, legend says, a French priest taught Cree to locals.

Today the lake is a summer gathering spot.

Thousands of day trippers, campers and cabin owners spend their summers at the lake’s regional park, taking swimming lessons, fishing, boating and playing a round of golf at the 9-hole course.

But people living at Lac Pelletier and on nearby farms worry the area’s water and even the air they breathe are being threatened by a large cattle operation at the top of the valley, about two kilometres away from the lake’s shoreline. 

“There’s about 2,000 cattle planned there. That produces something like nine million kilograms of manure and it’s 300 feet right above our heads and it’s downhill to the lake from the feedlot,” said Dan Kane, who retired to a lakeshore home on Lac Pelletier five years ago.

The cattle operation is owned by Swift Current farming magnate Darrel Monette. He declined CBC’s request for an interview, but did provide an emailed statement.

Monette purchased the land back in 2022 with plans to operate a feedlot with up to 2,000 feeder cows on site.

Monette obtained a permit from the rural municipality (RM) of Lac Pelletier allowing him to “over-winter” cattle on the site, but was denied a permit for a year-round feedlot, or intensive livestock operation (ILO).

In Saskatchewan, the province classifies a cattle operation as an ILO if animals are confined to less than 370 square metres per cow.

Kane said Monette’s livestock operation is near the lake and its aquifers, which provide the area’s drinking water.

“[The cattle operation] has two holding ponds full of a mixture of urine, water and manure. It’s like two gigantic swimming pools above our head,” Kane said.

“We were worried about contamination of the aquifers, all the things you could possibly imagine when you’re thinking about manure and urine, you know, getting into your water source.”

It’s not just manure seeping into wells and the lake that worries Kane, who is part of a group called Friends of Lac Pelletier that monitors development around the lake.

He said heavy rainfall last summer filled those holding ponds and Monette Farms Ltd. (MFL) had to pump the animal waste out onto nearby land.