A possible solution to the dangerously rising waters of the Quill Lakes may be nearing.

Wednesday night in Naicam, the Quill Lake Watershed Association(QLWSA) held a public meeting updating an overflow crowd about what's next for them in their quest to stop the levels that have risen six metres in the last dozen years.

"We're very close right now," QLWSA Chair Kerry Holderness stated after the meeting. "We're in the engineering phases of it right now, we've done some consultation on it. When we get the engineering done we haven't got a lot of time frame to do a lot more consultation, there will be some. I'm speaking to Saskatchewan Urban Municipality Association Thursday during a regional meeting in Raymore talking to the urban people that live along the Qu'Appelle Valley. People along the valley are just as concerned about the Quill Lakes overflowing as the people that live in the Quill Lakes."

Part of that is because the Quills are saline water lakes but Holderness is doing his best to qualm the fears of residents, businesses and stakeholders downstream.

"The saline water is definitely something that everybody is concerned with but basically our saline water that we have in the Quill Lakes right now, a gallon of saline water is only about two gallons away from being exactly the same as water flowing downstream. It's just a matter of managing it properly and if we can manage it properly we can minimize any damage before it happens."

Water in the lakes has reached an all time high and is just one large rain away from spilling its' banks for the first time in history. Already 34,000 acres of usable farmland is under water, that equals and economic loss of $43 million which is climbing faster than the levels.

For Holderness, who lives near Grid 640 between Big and Little Quill Lake, the time is now after seven years of lobbying for a solution.

"It's on a very personal level with a lot of areas, a lot of the people that have lost land are my friends and neighbours. After the flood(in 2011) and all the time we've spent working on that I'm getting more people I now personally who are going under all the time."

They are suggesting the separation and temporary storage of a third of the fresh water run off to manage and release accordingly plus they are looking into a saline filter to help cleaner water flow downstream.

He says the solution is up to them with hopefully government backing, they expect a report from their engineers next week with perhaps a two stage proposal to the province and Ministry of Environment not long after that.

You can hear more from Holderness below, he spoke to Bolt FM's Clark Stork and the Humboldt Journal's Chris Lee after the meeting.