Member municipalities of the La Salle/Redboine Conservation District are getting brought up to speed on how the past year has gone for the organization. Plans for 2018 are also being discussed as District Manager, Justin Reid, continues his annual round of visits to each council.

He explained municipalities continue to play an active role in the conservation district.

"We get a lot of project ideas from our municipalities. They speak with landowners on a regular basis and we get a lot of ideas funnelling up through our council members."

As for what he's hearing back from councils during this latest tour, Reid said a lot of the feedback centres around funding.

"This would be probably province-wide," he noted. "There seem to be more and more projects, and more and more people, that are vying for an ever-shrinking piece of the pie."

Looking back at 2017, Reid said the year was filled with some new pilot projects that focused on shoreline erosion.

"We did a project in the community La Salle where we took logs out from underneath one of the road bridges that were blocking water flow and installed them along the shore to use as a wave-break."

A partnership was also formed with the R.M. of Macdonald.

"(We) put up signs along the La Salle (River) letting boat operators know that they need to be careful how fast they're going up and down the river as the wake from their boat waves is leading to erosion along the shore," explained Reid.

As for what's planned in 2018, Reid said it will be steady-as-she-goes with smaller programs that the conservation district runs every year.

The list includes continued efforts to seal off abandoned wells and a possible water retention project in partnership with a local landowner. Reid added there will also be some additional work on grass runways and further erosion control projects.