Council in the Rural Municipality of Piney has elected to extend its state of local emergency.

The municipality initially declared a state of local emergency due to flooding from heavy rains on June 7th, 8th, and 9th.

RELATED ARTICLE: R.M. Of Piney Under State Of Emergency As Roads Wash Out

Reeve Wayne Anderson says council met Tuesday evening, reviewed the state of emergency, and decided to keep it in place until at least early July.

"We still have lots of water out here. The forecast shows continued rain and we are worried that we will have another significant rain event. A lot of the road repairs that we have done are temporary and we could lose a bunch at any time. We have up to a month to leave the state of emergency on without problem so thought it would be prudent to keep it on."

Anderson says the ground is saturated and any amount of rain would still immediately turn to runoff. He notes that isn’t even their only issue.

"We do have beaver problems on top of it. The beavers go out and they try to do their job which is to hold back water for themselves and they plug culverts and cause flooding upstream."

Anderson says municipal crews will continue doing their best to repair roads and alleviate flooding problems.