Pembina Valley Watershed District gets over $1.3M from Manitoba Habitat Conservancy

In late March, Manitoba Habitat Conservancy (MHC) announced it was investing nearly $12M in vital conservation initiatives across the province.

Under the GROW trust, the Pembina Valley Watershed District (PVWD) was awarded just over $1.3M for its 2024 Pembina Plum Initiative #5

"It's certainly amazing and very exciting not only for ourselves but also for the producers and farmers that fall within the district," said Dean Richards, the Southeast GROW Coordinator for PVWD. 

The 2024 Pembina Plum Initiative #5 is an application process for the funding from MHC to support GROW projects within the district.

"This year we applied for $1.3 million. It’s the most money that we've ever received," explained Richards. "What this funding does is directly support local land and water conservation projects that would help protect and safeguard the health of our waterways here in Manitoba."

Richards says the money will allow landowners to apply for a number of different programs.

"GROW stands for 'growing outcomes and watersheds.' It incentivizes farmers to implement projects that would promote watershed health while minimizing the impact to their own operations. The type of programs that we would support would be fencing and watering programs, saline area enhancements, flooded land conversions, shelter belt establishment, marginal land enhancement, shallow wetland incentives, water retention and wetlands enhancements, as well as the erosion control and stream crossings."

The PVWD covers quite a large area, all the way from Boissevain-Morton in the west to the RM's of Montcalm and Morris in the east.

While western regions in the district are well established, Richards says the programs they offer are gaining momentum among landowners in the east. 

"As we've expanded further east to include the RM of Rhineland, Roland, Morris now, Montcalm, we're just starting to gain momentum there. We've hired coordinators -- a coordinator here for the east, which would be myself. We now have an office in Altona in the mall, which we try to spend four days a week in. I'm also in the RM of Letellier office a couple times a month -- just out trying to promote the Pembina Valley Watershed District has to offer."

Richards finds it exciting to watch the district grow. 

"The most recent expansion has been the RM of Roland in the spring of 2023 and the RM of Morris this spring. They've been able to join the Manitoba Watershed District program, a voluntary provincial Municipal Partnership program. The program wants to enhance healthy and sustainable watersheds, land and water stewardship programs and partnerships. So, pretty exciting not only for ourselves, but for the newly joining RM’s as well. It gives them availability to that funding now."

Producers wanting more information on PVWD programs can talk to Richards or Kelsey Hoeppner in the Altona office or Samantha Leetch in the Killarney office.