The Municipality of Bifrost-Riverton has been suffering from rainfall they can't handle, so a group of farmers formed the Bifrost Agricultural Sustainability Initiative Cooperative -- or B.A.S.I.C. -- program. Reeve Harold foster:

"The BASIC project is basically an effort resulting from a group of farmers who approached us over two years ago with a petition wanting us to work with them to attract some senior government funds to improve the drainage system in Bifrost. We have a whole lot of bottlenecks and they're expensive bottlenecks."

Foster says they organized a decision to deal with the effort.

"The feeling was that it was too much for the municipality to do it on their own. We had a public meeting the other night to determine whether we could go ahead with a debenture. And the proposal is that we would borrow up to $4 million, provided that the senior governments come up with matching or better funding to work on some of the problems with drainage here."

He notes the RM gets six or seven inches of rain in one shot, and no current system is able to handle it. He says there's room to improve systems that are in place. Foster adds the municipality has done their part, but everything hinges on whether they can receive government supplemental funding.

Foster says the process to get the funding is up to the BASIC board of farmers that includes two council members from the RM. The RM council will not engage in the petitioning process. Foster adds they had a public meeting and only 5% opposed the decision, ensuring him it's the people's choice to seek the debenture, while adding there are still hoops to jump through.