The Manitoba government has earmarked more than $330,000 for the development of locally driven watershed management plans, but one watershed expert says the province could do more to manage water resources.
The support includes a new round of grants, with $213,280 going toward 11 projects and $125,000 to four conservation districts, according to an announcement from water stewardship minister Christine Melnick last week.
“We are funding a number of water protection and awareness activities in Manitoba that help preserve our rich water resources,” said Melnick.
“In addition, managing watersheds more effectively to better maintain water quality requires strong partnerships and we have found excellent partners in the existing conservation districts.”
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Bryan Osborne, project manager for the “living laboratory” that is the Tobacco Creek Model Watershed near Miami, Man., called the support a step in the right direction, but said funding is short of the actual need.
The $25,000 per project offered by the province is not enough to fully implement watershed plans, he said.
Redrawing the boundaries of conservation districts to match the actual course of water flows in the province has been a stated goal of the province for the past five years. This announcement helps to formalize that pledge, he added.
However, the Whitemud and Turtle River Conservation Districts, formed under watershed jurisdictional rules created in the late 1950s, already fit that description, he said.
“The solutions have to come locally. That’s your Lake Winnipeg solution: a bunch of small watersheds fixing their own problems.”
To this end, the province could give local efforts a boost by encouraging communities to solve their own problems and make it easier to budget according to requirements, he said.
Municipalities have no control over water flows, yet they are still on the hook for the annual cost of fixing culverts and drains. The solution, said Oborne, is to transfer responsibility for all water-related maintenance to watershed-based entities.
“We pay millions in disaster assistance claims every year, every time a road or culvert washes out. After a certain point, the province kicks in funding. That doesn’t encourage any local municipality to make long-term investments,” said Osborne.
“Take your last five years of disaster assistance claims and give it to them in a lump sum. Then put that into an endowment fund for long-term, upstream watershed management solutions.”
Watershed management plans spell out local priorities and actions for areas where rainfall and other precipitation gathers and then flows into rivers, creeks, streams, marshes or lakes.
As part of the announcement, the province has signed new agreements with four conservation districts to be designated as water planning authorities for five watersheds. Last year, these conservation districts received a total of $1 million in programming support.
New funding for planning, such as gathering information on watershed resources and public consultations, will go to the Pembina Valley, East Interlake, Intermountain and West Souris River conservation districts.
“Water and its related resources are best co-ordinated on a watershed basis and this type of planning is more effectively led by local people,” said Melnick.
