The Government of Saskatchewan has scrapped the Kutawagan diversion project that was planned to alleviate flooding in the Quill Lakes.

The Water Security Agency has held public meetings both south of the dam project and in the Quill Lake region where the problem is most dire and no one seemed particularly happy with the plan.

RM of Lakeside Councillor Kerry Holderness is pleased they dumped the plan but something still needs to be done.

"We're still seeking a stabilization of water levels at or below today's levels and we feel that's the best for property and infrastructure costs in the future. It wouldn't be far what a natural spill point would get, it would just be speeding it up by a little bit."

Quill Lake area stakeholders were concerned with the current level of their lakes and the none drainage factor, the Last Mountain area residents were concerned with the salt water flowing into their water.

Herb Cox, the Minister responsible for the Water Security Agency says they listened to the public scrapping the plan.

"The result of that consultation, although no one really opposed it a lot of people just didn't approve of it and depending where you were from it was for different reasons. We listened to that and we've made the decision not to proceed with the project."

Holderness says they have a head start on a spillway from the Quill Lakes already. He feels that's the best option to help alleviate the rising water.

"A lot of the ground work that was done for the Kutawagan proposal is the same ground work that would be for a natural release so they have a lot of that work done. It's just a matter of they won't have to build a dam now they just have to build a structure that will manage the water so nobody downstream can be flooded."

Cox agreed that they did receive some possible solutions during the consultations.

"We're very actively pursuing new alternatives that we can look at and I guess as part of what came out of the consultation process and the good thing about it is we did get some good suggestions made and we are exploring all of them."

In the last ten years, the Quill Lakes have risen an astonishing 22 feet and are now about a meter away from spilling their banks.

You can hear more from both Holderness and Cox below in their interviews with Bolt FM's Clark Stork below.