The Seine Rat River Conservation District (SRRCD) will host a second open house Wednesday evening concerning the Roseau River watershed.

Jim Swidersky is Team Leader for the Integrated Watershed Management Plan. He says the Conservation District started this watershed about two years ago and now they are holding open houses in order to find out the concerns and priorities of area residents.

(Roseau River watershed in grey)The first open house was held January 28 in Vassar. Jodi Goerzen, who is District Manager for SRRCD says about two dozen people showed up that night.

"We had a great response for understanding a bit more about what the watershed concerns are," says Goerzen. "Every farmer will say that the one thing worse than too much water is no water at all."

Goerzen notes those who attend will be asked to rank the order of importance of watersheds.

"It can be anywhere from drinking water, water quality, water quantity, fisheries, agriculture, wetlands, wildlife habitat or anything else that they find very important for their area concerning water," she says.

According to Swidersky, each watershed must have a watershed plan. He says the province gives SRRCD $25,000 towards implementing such a plan. He notes the province will work alongside the Conservation District in this process. Swidersky says hopefully a decade from now they can look back at this plan and see strides that have been made.

In addition to the open houses, the Conservation District will view results that are mailed in or sent electronically.

Wednesday's open house is at Dominion City Community Hall beginning at 6:30pm, while the open house Thursday is at Vita Community Hall, starting at 6:30pm.

Goerzen says it would be great to see fifty people show up to each meeting.

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