In May, communities along the Red River suddenly became islands after almost a month of weekly Colorado lows. Major highways were closed for weeks. Municipal roads were washed out. Residents were filling and placing sandbags.

In mid-June, producers in Manitoba’s Interlake faced flash flooding after yet another storm dropped more than 18 centimetres (seven inches) of rain in the Fisher Branch area.

For anyone with even a few years of experience in the province, dry years of the last five years or so notwithstanding, other bad flood years are an easy jaunt down memory lane.

In western Manitoba, the Souris River and Assiniboine River flood of 2014, as in 2022, was driven not by spring run-off but by torrential rain.

Further back was a 2011 event that a provincial taskforce later described as a flood of “a scope and severity never before experienced, in recorded history, in this province.”

More than 7,100 people were evacuated that May. Floodwaters claimed or damaged more than 650 municipal roads, 600 bridges and sparked review around water management at the provincial and international levels. In its final report, the same provincial task force estimated the damage at $1.2 million in Manitoba.

And, of course, there was 1997’s “Flood of the Century,” an event that still looms large in the collective mind of Manitobans.

Every time it happens, policy makers and water management experts take another look at how we can prepare for the next one.

In an era where society is being told to brace for more weather extremes, and where the list of potential projects is endless and resources are finite, efficiency is the name of the game.

Why it matters: More technological tools require more and better data underpinning to determine which water management projects are pursued.

Greater technical capacity will allow watershed districts and other groups to choose projects that bring the most bang for the buck, according to Steve Strang, managing director of the Red River Basin Commission (RRBC).

The organization has turned to LiDAR ground mapping to inform its strategies.

“It basically allows you to look at the lay of the ground from the seat of your desk and then, when you’re giving considerations to, how do I address ‘this’ problem, such as flood and flood mitigation, you can now look at it not only as a small picture. So, you’re not just addressing one area; you’re addressing the whole area,” said Strang.

Short for “light detection and ranging,” LiDAR uses aircraft-mounted laser scanners to send brief pulses of light at the ground. In conjunction with GPS technology and navigation systems, it then reads the bounce-back to map elevation of the ground below.

The resulting data can be plugged into hydrological modeling to estimate water flows in the region.

After the 1997 flood, an initiative began to map out the Red River Basin using this method. In the U.S. portion of the basin, LiDAR mapping was complete in 2006, according to the RRBC but Manitoba progress was considerably slower, Strang noted. Though some area had been flown, the map was spotty, with significant holes.

Not until last year was mapping completed across the region. A joint project between the commission and provincial government finished off LiDAR data collection in the remaining areas of the Red River Basin and updated information from previously mapped areas.

The increased data set will help watershed districts choose projects with the best chance of widespread impact, Strang said.

At the same time, the equation used to gauge potential projects goes beyond water management. When the RRBC looks for a new spot for a reservoir, said Strang, it is also looking for ecological factors including wildlife habitat and hydrological factors like aquifer connectivity.

“Suddenly your tax dollar’s gone a lot further…You’re not just addressing one thing. You’re addressing multiple things that we’re facing from climate change,” he said.

“Sometimes, what you’ll find is that even though you’re addressing a problem in one area, the solving of that problem may exist in somebody else’s municipality…Those are the things that we have to look at. It can no longer be about one municipality or one watershed.”

Aquanty

The Assiniboine River Basin Initiative (ARBI) has turned to the Aquanty project, a hydrological model spearheaded by the Manitoba Forge and Grassland Association (MFGA). ARBI has used the model to assess the impacts of small “off-stem” water retention projects along the eastern Souris River.

Such projects would slow water flow in times of flood and create a buffer for drought years.

“There’s a desire from many to look at some of those windows of opportunity and what makes sense,” said ARBI executive director Wanda McFadyen.

The first phases of the Aquanty project developed five interconnected models – one for the total basin, on for three sub-basins and a micro-analysis of the smaller Assiniboine-Birdstail Watershed. The idea is to mimic water behaviour based on ground mapping, land use and other factors. Different scenarios can then be run through the model.

It has already been used to assess soil health and land drainage impacts on water flow in the Assiniboine River Basin.

Steve Frey is a senior scientist at Aquanty Inc., the company developing the MFGA’s model.

“We did a couple of studies; one in Virden to look at mitigation strategies to really lessen the risk of the type of event that occurred in 2014. We also did a study in the Shoal Lake area,” Frey said.

That study looked at how wetland loss could impact flood risk.

Those initial models have been available since 2018 to municipalities and watershed districts that want to use it for water management planning. Availability of the models has spread through word of mouth.

“We don’t do a lot of sales and marketing…it’s really the MFGA that we’re working for in Manitoba,” Frey said. “A lot of the attention that has been given to the project has come through outreach that the MFGA does.

“I think if you look at how the tool kind of aligns with the broader mission of the MFGA to help really develop sustainable agricultural landscapes and resilient agricultural landscapes in the face of climate change, I think that our technology really aligns well with the organization’s objectives.”

Still to come

That first phase of Aquanty provided groundwork for the MFGA’s next project, development of a real-time hydrologic forecasting tool.

Announced last year, the tool will eventually allow the public, including farmers, to check what the water situation might look like in their area, in the same way they might check the weather.

The MFGA envisions a forecast integrating soil moisture data, ground water depth, depth to groundwater, surface water levels, stream flow, exfiltration and water recharge. Users would be able to access those data layers through an online portal and could hone in on their watershed or the closest data collection station.

In a May newsletter, the association characterized the project as a “valuable tool in the producer’s tool kits as water-influencing climatic events such as drought and flood — and sometimes both in short time frames over a calendar year — continue to showcase the potential for planning, awareness and resilience around land and water on farms and ranches.”

The tool will likely be geared toward the medium-term, Frey said, which is three days to two weeks, and perhaps out to 32 days. That would give producers a useful horizon for planning feed or water supplies or to move assets out of harm’s way.

The MFGA has pitched a seven-day forecast and it plans to launch the forecasting tool next year and, in the meantime, will consult various stakeholders.

Flood planning

There is interest and investment in developing tools to avoid water-related crises, Frey noted.

Governments, industry and other stakeholder have provided funds for his company’s work with the MFGA.

The first phase of Manitoba’s Aquanty models came with a $3 million price tag. Likewise, the announcement of the forecasting tool last year came with a promise of $1.1 million from the federal government.

Work such as the completed LiDAR mapping in the Red River Basin can also help strengthen the available tools and response to flood events. Frey said LiDAR is one of the most important pieces for short and long-term hydrological forecasting.

“More LiDAR data makes our simulations better,” he said. “The more the landscape is covered with LiDAR, the more of the landscape that can subsequently be kind of simulated in a higher quality simulation.”

He added that policymakers are well aware of the need to develop these technologies but more public awareness about available tools is needed.

“Obviously, from a scientist’s perspective, we could always use more funding, but I wouldn’t want to make the statement that we’re not doing enough to support the tool development,” he said.

“The governments are investing and the technology providers like Aquanty, we’re kind of rising to meet the challenge. Now, maybe, it becomes an issue where we have to make people aware of what we’re doing.”

The post The high-tech future of flood fighting appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“Every day that passes by is a day the Netley Marsh (which is the largest coastal wetlands in North America) could begin its journey back to being a healthy functional marsh once again and helping Lake Winnipeg,” Steve Strang, the Manitoba director of the Red River Basin Commission, told the Manitoba Co-operator in an email.

The Netley-Libau Marsh, at the base of Lake Winnipeg in the RM of St. Clements, once acted as a filter, removing harmful nutrients from the water flowing into Lake Winnipeg. The marsh has now deteriorated significantly, according to the Netley Marsh Restoration Pilot Project website.

The deterioration is due in part to flooding of the marsh caused by sediment buildup at the Red River mouth. The project would dredge areas of the river and use the sediment material to construction sediment “shelves” in Hardman Lake, the project website says.

If the Netley marsh was restored to health, it could filter up to six per cent of the nutrient load that enters the system, and could reduce algae blooms in Lake Winnipeg, according to the committee’s news release.

Before the pilot can proceed, the project needs environmental licensing from the province and federal government, Strang said. He added the application must be circulated through several government departments before it can be approved.

This process is taking longer than expected.

“Though it is frustrating for the committee, we understand that due diligence is required to get it right,” Strang said.

“The thing is, there is nothing in the areas that we are much concerned about. The areas that we are looking at have no vegetation growth and the only fish seems to be the common carp which is an invasive species and is causing part of the problem,” said Strang. “The marsh is not a marsh right now. It is a muddy water waste hole.”

Strang added that the project committee will also have to ensure if funding is still secure, as it was approved to be used in a certain timeline.

“We are working with our many funding partners to ensure funds can stay in place as we develop a new timeline for a 2020 launch date,” Strang said in the news release. “Nutrient reductions to Lake Winnipeg are needed now so while the delay is disheartening it will give us more time to ensure that the project is a success.”

The post Red tape sees marsh renewal project delayed appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

This is a newly released tile drainage bylaw template, a project led by the Red River Basin Commission and various partners to help local governments better understand this subsurface drainage system used by more and more farmers and local government’s role in the overall approval process.

Tile drainage isn’t new but it’s new to some, and as polls of participants during a series of tile drainage webinars last year showed, there’s still much confusion, including how the municipality’s role differs from provincial responsibilities in the overall approval process.

This template is intended only to be a guideline and meant to help councils start discussions to create their own process and bylaws, said RRBC officials last week.

“The purpose of this is it’s a starting point. It’s to guide municipalities in the creation of their own bylaws regarding tile drainage,” said Alison Sass, RRBC’s North Basin project co-ordinator who went over the considerations the template flags for municipalities when tile applications are received.

• Read more: International Souris River Study Board seeks public input

This should also help demystify tile drainage and help local governments make good decisions possible for their municipality and the farmers who want to tile land, Sass said.

“It’s important for us to educate ourselves on what tile is, what the benefits are and what the impacts are,” she said.

Discussion starter

“This is a starting point to create and engage discussion in your municipality, and provide a little bit of education as well.”

The webinar polls last year revealed only about 15 per cent of municipalities in Manitoba currently have any sort of policy to guide them in reviewing tile applications as they come forward.

But as Steve Strang, Manitoba director of the RRBC points out “just granting an approval or just saying ‘no’ doesn’t work.”

“Councils need to understand the request before them.”

The 17-page plain language template lays out a series of considerations, discussion points and examples of bylaw text.

It enables municipalities to think about matters ahead of time, such as where they want tile water discharged, the condition of soil and water at the location the project is proposed, and maximum drainage coefficients.

The template also defines the roles of the province regulating tile, and municipal roles, and includes references and links to technical expertise and information municipalities need, such as the soil survey reports.

Managed tile drainage

It’s making more sense for producers to install tile and improve land productivity, given the rising cost of land acquisitions.

But there’s a wide range of conditions and soils across the province, and poorly designed projects lead to costly mistakes — and potentially conflict — for all involved.

Cliff Greenfield, manager for the Pembina Valley Conservation District said the trouble starts when something happens that nobody anticipated ahead of time.

A more carefully considered design phase that this template can facilitate can help us get in front of this, Greenfield said.

“Hopefully this will help the RMs and producers and even installers kind of get ahead of the game and keep things organized and working properly, so we don’t have these problems after the fact,” he said.

• Read more: Getting the most from tile drainage

The Assiniboine River Basin Initiative (ARBI), six conservation districts plus the province of Manitoba and its Tile Drainage Interdepartmental Working Group were RRBC’s partners in developing the template.

This should help move us towards a more managed and co-ordinated approach to drainage overall, said Allan Preston, ARBI chair.

“Tile drainage is a component of ag drainage, and I think sometimes people fail to recognize that it needs to be viewed in that perspective,” he said. “And part of the problem we’ve faced with the overall drainage issue for a number of years is that a lot of drainage works are completed and installed without giving adequate thought to the downstream impact.

“I think this drainage template, if municipalities adopt it and utilize it, it will enable them to form more fair decisions with regards to projects in their municipality.”

Municipalities in the western half of Manitoba see fewer applications for tile relative to the eastern portion of the province. Tile is now installed on thousands of acres of agricultural land across the province, yet still represents a small portion overall of agro-Manitoba, meaning the potential for a lot more to come is out there.

The RM of Dufferin ratified 15 tile projects last year alone, and has another 20 in front of it for review at present, reeve of that RM George Gray told those attending the template launch in Winnipeg last week.

That’s an uptick they anticipated a long time ago, too, he said.

Dufferin’s approach

About a dozen years ago it was already evident to them that tile would take on a life of its own and their concern at that time was that if it was left unregulated, as it was at the time, they’d soon be “like the Wild West.”

“And I mean that truly because without regulations and people willing to work with them you have a lot of bad things happening,” Gray said.

• Read more: Dufferin’s tile drainage bylaw a ‘template’ for others

The template that will now be available across the province has its origins in his RM’s own comprehensive made-in-Dufferin policy developed under the direction of former reeve Shawn McCutcheon.

Gray stressed that in no way whatsoever was Dufferin’s adoption of the policy intended to stop farmers from tiling their land.

“The policy was never designed to restrict the concept of tile drainage, but to encourage people to understand it and use it for the benefit of agriculture,” Gray said.

“Never be afraid of it,” he told the Winnipeg gathering last week.

“Just make sure you use rules and regulations to your benefit, and to your farmers, and you’ll get along fine.”

The post Tile drainage template will aid municipalities appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Anyone eyeing the better yield prospects and earlier field access it offers must have a thorough understanding of how the subsurface pipe system works in their specific field conditions, Ag Days speakers said.

‘Should it be the same as my neighbour’s or are there other options?’ said Mitchell Timmerman, agri-ecosystems specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, who facilitated the Jan. 17 seminar.

“Certain tile spacing is common in the province but that doesn’t mean it fits in every scenario.”

Clearly, many farmers are keen to learn the ins and outs of tile drainage, judging by the packed audience listening to the Brandon panel. It included one farmer’s experience with tile drainage, perspectives from tile installers as well as provincial staff on the regulatory framework.

Aaron Hargreaves farms 15,000 acres of corn, soybeans, canola and wheat in the Souris and Wawanesa areas. They decided tile was the way to go after very poor crops during the intense wet year of 2011. They began installing tile in 2012 at a point where it was still a relatively new practice in Manitoba.

One of the benefits Hargreaves emphasized in Brandon was the way it reduced the problems they were experiencing with worsening salinity on their land.

“We’ve seen salinity essentially gone,” he said. “If there’s anyone who doesn’t believe it can solve salinity issues… we’ve seen it on our farm.”

Higher yields from previously saturated land have made the farm more productive and profitable, justifying the investment in his eyes.

“You’re looking at $40 net profit without tile, with tile $80 net profit,” he said. “You might say ‘that’s not much money.’ But how else can you double your net profit on the farm? Buy more land, more seeders and combines and do twice as much work?’ It’s a no-brainer really.”

Todd Walker, a partner with Frontier Drainage Systems, a new company formed in 2014 to provide design and installation services, spoke about various aspects of drainage design such as layout and pipe sizing and shared photos of clients’ fields showing pronounced crop growth along tile lines.

Tile gets farmers on fields earlier in spring and spray seasons, makes the soil profile more arable and can reduce peak flow surface run-off by anywhere from 20 to 40 per cent, Walker said.

Timmerman hoped the talk would help dispel some of the misconceptions and myths around tile drainage, including that it is an unregulated drainage practice.

“Regulation is vigorous in Manitoba. This is no exception,” said Timmerman, who outlined the various roles of the provincial departments as well as the role of the municipality in the approval process for applicants seeking to tile their land.

Timmerman is a member of the provincial Tile Drainage Interdepartmental Working Group, formed in 2016 and comprised of representatives from the provincial departments of Sustainable Development, Agriculture, and Indigenous and Municipal Relations.

The Red River Basin Commission, meanwhile, is working with this group on the development of a tile drainage bylaw template to help municipalities.

Timmerman said the main thing organizers hoped the Brandon seminar would get across is how important site specific information is in the assessment of the suitability of this practice.

“We want to have knowledgeable people making knowledgeable decisions,” he said.

“We’re encouraging farmers to learn as much as they can, and to have a constructive relationship with their installers and other folks like ourselves.”

The post Getting the most from tile drainage appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“We knew it was going to take on a life of its own. He did research in Ontario and the U.S. and in the absence of a provincial plan we knew we had to do something.”

Gray spoke at the Manitoba Planning Conference earlier this spring about why Dufferin adopted its own tile drainage bylaw and described its effect on the municipality.

Theirs is a relative rarity, despite the fast-paced adoption of tile on agricultural land throughout the rest of Manitoba.

Gray said a webinar hosted by the Red River Basin Commission (RRBC) this past February revealed that perhaps about 15 per cent of municipalities actually have something in place to manage tile drains. Those that have them have a longer history of installations, and they differ in scope and specific details.

• Read more: Four-part webinar series takes tile drainage education into the digital age
• Read more: Assiniboine River Basin Initiative progressing, but funding needed

The RM of Dufferin’s bylaw is comprehensive and lays out a clear set of rules and regulations.

Gray said it was not developed to put up hurdles to tiling agricultural land — quite the contrary.

“There are a number of misconceptions of tile drainage which initiate concerns around allowing tile to be installed,” he said. “But tile is one of the best tools farmers have at their disposal and it has a very positive future in agriculture.”

But it also needs to be carefully managed, he stressed. “Like all things in life, good policy and good management are the tools to success.”

Written plan needed

Some of the specifics of Dufferin’s policy include the requirement that anyone wanting to tile land must first provide a written proposal to the RM, citing where they plan to drain, be it municipal or provincial drains. Site inspections are done and agreements signed that state ditches will not be deepened nor altered, nor pipes liable to collapse installed beneath municipal roadways.

Licensees sign minor works agreements with the RM, rendering the landowner responsible for all ditch work in consultation with the RM. The bylaw also lays out guidelines for tile installation specifications.

This summer Dufferin has had as many as a dozen new applications to review.

Ultimately, what they’re trying to do is keep ahead of this while balancing the needs of farmers with those downstream landowners. The RM has obligations to all ratepayers, Gray said.

“We want to make sure the licensees know where the water is going and that there are other ratepayers in the RM involved,” he said.

Gray told municipal leaders not to be afraid to formulate policies of their own.

“Anything that’s unknown is fearful and any time you fear something you don’t want to deal with it,” he said.

“We’re only too willing to share this with (other municipalities) to help them along.”

The RRBC is now guiding development of a tile drainage bylaw template that will be based on the RM of Dufferin’s. The province’s Tile Drainage Interdepartmental Working Group will be one of several stakeholder groups providing input.

The group was formed last August and was put together because municipalities in Manitoba are looking for information about tile drainage and its regulation, said the group’s chair Sheri Grift, a land use specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.

The working group currently has eight members representing the provincial departments of Sustainable Development, Manitoba Agriculture and Indigenous and Municipal Relations.

Its job is to co-ordinate provincial tile drainage initiatives, as well as knowledge across departments and assemble and communicate technical information, Grift said.

The post Dufferin’s tile drainage bylaw a ‘template’ for others appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

A series of four webinars is running until March 18, with topics spanning the on-farm benefits, downstream implications, environmental concerns and government considerations of tile drainage.

“It’s established in other places, such as south of the border, but here it’s fairly new in terms of number of acres where it’s been adopted and also a new topic, I suppose, for a lot of people,” said Mitchell Timmerman, agri-ecosystems specialist with the province and one of the webinars’ presenters.

• Comment: Pull the plug or turn off the tap?

A joint project between the province, Assiniboine River Basin Initiative, five conservation districts and sponsored by north and south chapters of the Red River Basin Commission, the series launched Feb. 21 with “What Does Tile Do For My Crops,” a look at the draws of the practice, including yield impacts, agronomic benefits and water balance.

Webinars later turned to effects on the watershed, concerns, and best management practices such as drainage gates, effective nutrient management, tillage, use of bioreactors such as a barrier of buried wood chips and constructed wetlands to mitigate nutrient loss.

“It’s all about the specifics. Site-specific conditions are critically important, so even though, like with other practices, even though we can say, ‘Tile drainage can work,’ it will be a question of whether it will have a fit for an individual farm or field,” Timmerman said. “And even though we’re not spending a lot of time talking about it, the economics are a huge factor in farmers’ ability to adopt the practice.”

Timmerman said he was unsure of attendance during latter webinars, although the first of the series had registrations in the triple digits.

Initial sessions have since been posted to YouTube, and can be accessed from the RRBC Winnipeg account.

The final presentation, “Policy and Local Government Considerations,” is set for Mar. 15, 2:30-3:30 p.m. and will cover tile drainage from the perspective of municipalities, local and provincial policy and existing case studies.

Registration is available at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4399879777355234818.

The post Four-part webinar series takes tile drainage education into the digital age appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Compost is one of nature’s best mulches and soil amendments. Most gardeners know the value of this rich, dark, earthy material in improving the soil and creating a healthful environment for plants. Understanding how to make and use compost is in the public interest, as the problem of waste disposal continues to grow.

A few of the many benefits of compost are:

• Reduction in garbage volume.
• A rich, natural fertilizer cuts back on use of chemical fertilizers.
• Improves soil aeration and drainage.
• Helps control weeds.
• Decreases the need for costly watering.

The following tips are from the River Keepers, and for more information on building your own composter, go to riverkeepers.org.

• As soon as decomposition begins, the volume of the pile will decrease. Don’t be tempted to add more materials at this point, as this resets the clock on that batch.
• You will maximize your composting efforts if you aerate by turning or mixing the heap about once a week. A garden fork or hay fork work well.
• Finished compost is usually less than half the volume of the materials you started with, but it’s much denser. When finished it should look, feel and smell like rich, dark soil. You should not be able to recognize any of the items you originally placed in the pile.

Some common problems to watch for are:

• If the compost is too wet, turn it more frequently or add dry brown material.
• If the pile doesn’t heat up, add more green material to the compost; may need to add water; may need to aerate.
• If there is an ammonia or rotten egg smell, turn the compost or add brown material to dry it out.
• If large amounts of dropped apples or kitchen scraps attract wasps or other unwelcome pests, turn more frequently.

Here’s some ways to use finished compost:

• Mix compost into the soil to improve it.
• Spread compost on lawn to fill in low spots.
• Use as mulch for landscaping and gardening.
• Mix compost into potted plants.

Key materials for composting are nitrogen-rich ‘greens’ and carbon-rich ‘browns,’ water, and air. Examples of greens are green leaves, coffee grounds/filters, tea bags, plant trimming, fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells and fresh grass clippings. Examples of browns are dead plants, sawdust from untreated lumber, twigs, and dried grasses, weeds, straw and leaves. Water allows microbes in your compost to grow and help decompose material. The compost should be moist. Air aids in decomposition and controls odours. A good recipe is one part green to four parts brown.

Some items not to compost are:

• Meat, fish and animal fats — These materials may attract unwanted visitors to your compost pile.
• Shredded newspapers or office paper — The paper may contain chemicals that are not good for your compost. Recycle them instead.
• Ashes from your grill — Wood ashes can be very useful in small quantities, but BBQ grill ashes should NEVER go into your compost pile.
• Dog and cat feces — These materials can add diseases to your compost, and they have an unpleasant odour. Use chicken, horse, cow, and rabbit manure instead.
• Sawdust from treated lumber — Sometimes lumber is treated with harmful chemicals.

With a small investment of time, you can contribute to the solution to a community waste disposal problem, while at the same time enriching the soil and improving the health of your yard and garden.

The post The importance of composting appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

In many places in the basin, however, farmers are noticing areas of fields not producing well in recent years.

Could these two phenomena — tilling practices and plant growth problems — be connected?

Turns out the answer is yes. Tilling is a primary way salts trapped in deeper layers of the basin’s soil rise to the surface. The resulting salt-ridden or saline topsoils cause decline — often dramatic — in crop production.

How does tilling cause salts to rise? Well, salts tend to follow water in the soil — they go where the water goes. Tilling causes water to rise in the soil, and the salts rise with the water. Because tilling also dries out the layer(s) of soil it impacts, the salts that have followed the water upwards get stranded in upper layers.

When the phenomenon gets repeated year after year, enough salts make their way up to root level and above to cause loss in the soil’s production capabilities.

And this appears to be what is happening in the basin, where areas of saline soil in crop production fields are increasing with every year. In the North Dakota portion of the Red River basin alone, according to a 2007 mapping, an estimated two million acres have become, or have the potential for becoming, saline.

Once the salts have risen, solutions do not come easily. The movement of salts in the soil can be a complex phenomenon, and, even with best efforts, producers continue to depend on tilling practices. As one researcher from North Dakota State University (NDSU) put it at a recent field demonstration on saline soils, “salinity wipes the easy button off the map.”

Agencies are ramping up efforts to respond to the growing problem of saline soils. For Canadian producers, Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development is a source of information for managing salinity. For U.S. producers, the Natural Resources Conservation Service offers information, together with technical and financial assistance through its Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

Research on saline soils is also underway. Of particular interest is a long-term study undertaken by NDSU Extension that is applying various practices to saline-impacted soils under real farming conditions in order to keep economics in the equation while improving soil health.

Soil health is also a priority for the Red River Basin Commission (RRBC). A newly established RRBC work group on Soil Conservation/Soil Health has begun tracking and reporting practices from around the basin that further soil health, with the goal of improving soil health in the basin by linking efforts and information.

The post Saline soils, plant growth problems linked to tillage practices appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“This ongoing (flooding) event has certainly heightened awareness of the need for a basin-wide agency,” said Wanda McFadyen, who was hired by the Prairie Improvement Network to manage the Assiniboine River Basin Initiative (ARBI.)

PIN started the process last fall by pulling together representatives of municipalities and counties, conservation-, water-, agricultural- and science-based organizations as well as government departments from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota.

Participants in a one-day workshop in Virden earlier this spring showed strong support for the idea. A planning committee is now in a second phase toward forming the cross-jurisdictional, multi-stakeholder organization. This spring’s events have underscored the need for it.

“We felt this was an ideal time for this, but never foreseeing the events that are going on at this point,” said McFadyen.

Meetings

The committee will meet again in Minot in early August to develop a governance model and a membership structure to be presented when stakeholders reconvene again at a Regina conference planned for November 12 to 14, 2014.

At that time they aim to formalize the organization and map out priorities. The key role of the ARB will be serving as a catalyst for collaboration.

“Our goal, through the work we are doing with the ARBI planning committee, is to bring together stakeholders across all three jurisdictions to develop an effective organization to work co-operatively in this area,” said Dr. Allan Preston, PIN board member and the ARBI’s interim chair in a news release.

An interim executive committee formed following the Virden meeting includes Patrick Fridgen of the North Dakota State Water Commission, Aron Hershmiller of the Saskatchewan Assiniboine Watershed Stewards Association, Dan Mazier of the Keystone Agricultural Producers and Heather Dalgleish of Manitoba Conservation Districts Association.

PIN has also brought in Lance Yohe, former executive director of the Red River Basin Commission to serve as its senior adviser.

The initiative is gaining support from municipal leaders and their respective associations.

Rick Plaisier, reeve of the RM of Sifton is also co-chair of the Southwest Flood Strategy Committee representing 35 municipalities in Manitoba.

Their group is “very encouraged” to see the ARBI advancing, he said. Their own committee has long called for recognizing how inflows of water from Saskatchewan are worsening, he said.

The Assiniboine River runs directly through the RM of Sifton, which has been especially hard hit by flooding in spring and again this summer.

“We look forward to that meeting in November and we’ll support that commission 100 per cent,” Plaisier said. “We feel that all the partners, whether they be from the States, or Saskatchewan, or Manitoba and the various stakeholders, whether they be DU or KAP, beef producers… need to sit down to talk about a solution that will be satisfactory to all.”

Priority

PIN also has meetings planned with several government departments, elected officials, as well as other agencies and stakeholders this summer.

Earlier this month Larry Maguire (MP — Brandon–Souris) in an address to Keystone Agricultural Producers also called on the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota to get behind the advancement of the Assiniboine River Basin Commission.

“I call on our leaders to make this initiative a priority of their governments and I cannot stress enough the need for all parties to be at the table,” he said.

Maguire also vowed to help the commission get established.

The Assiniboine River Basin encompasses the Assiniboine River as well as the Souris and Qu’Appelle rivers and their tributaries and crosses over Saskatchewan and Manitoba — and North Dakota. At its end point, the Assiniboine River Basin joins the Red River in Winnipeg, as well as having waters diverted through the Portage Diversion into Lake Manitoba, with the final outflow of both being Lake Winnipeg.

More information about the ARB initiative is found on the Prairie Improvement Network website.

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About 140 representatives of municipalities and counties plus water-governing organizations and associations from Manitoba, North Dakota and Saskatchewan gathered in Virden March 26 for a workshop to define water management issues and needs of the Assiniboine River Basin.

Organizers hope an agreement will emerge to form a multi-jurisdictional water management organization that spans the entire basin, which includes large areas of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Dakota and encompasses the sub-basins of the Qu’Appelle, Souris and Assiniboine rivers.

The catalyst for the meeting is the Prairie Improvement Network (PIN), formerly known as the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council, which has been working on what it’s dubbed the Assiniboine River Basin Initiative for about a year.

A planning committee for the ARB Initiative commenced last fall and now has nearly 50 members, including those representing Keystone Agricultural Producers, Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, the associations for municipalities in both provinces, conservation districts and other grassroots and government organizations.

Lance Yohe, executive director for the Red River Basin Commission described how his organization developed at PIN’s annual meeting last week. In an interview Yohe said the Virden meeting was designed to allow stakeholders to identify priorities, whether that is flood protection, water quality or groundwater issues, and determine whether there is enough common ground to work together addressing them.

More from the Manitoba Co-operator website: Farmers, government spar over use of Portage Diversion

The RRBC ultimately evolved into a multi-jurisdictional entity that is today funded by all three levels of government. It has no specific authority of its own, but it provides great value to legislators because of its ongoing data and information gathering and the big picture it provides, Yohe said.

“They see value in what we do for everybody in trying to think of the bigger picture and create that path foward,” he said.

Keystone Agricultural Producers vice-president Dan Mazier, one of nearly 50 now serving on the ARB Initiative’s planning committee, said he was confident there would be a collaborative effort going forward.

“As a farmer the one thing I can never get over is how many different entities are looking after water management in the same basin,” he said.

“There are conservation districts, the municipalties, the towns and cities, water users, and no one is really tying them together,” he said. “This organization should tie us all together and get us all going in the same direction.”

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