The Seine-Rat River Conservation District is changing its name.

Board Chair Cornie Goertzen says their name will soon switch to Seine-Rat-Roseau Watershed District and notes this is due to a provincial remodeling of boundary lines.

Goertzen says the provincial government is compressing 18 districts into 14 and reorganizing all municipal-based districts into watersheds.

While this boundary change will affect many municipalities that will now be split up along their rivers and creeks, Goertzen says SRRCD had already been operating as a watershed so they will not be heavily impacted.

“In our case, nothing has changed as far as boundaries are concerned,” says Goertzen, “though I know others have had major changes and I think they are having real issues with it.”

Goertzen says these changes will be made official in 2020. Before that happens, however, they need to be approved by all affected municipalities. Goertzen adds that this new model does not come with any additional funding from the province.

Meanwhile, SRRCD Manager Jodi Goerzen says finances are not a huge problem for right now, thanks to the million dollars in grants received a handful of months ago.

This funding has helped in many ways including the implementation of several riparian projects that water cattle away from rivers and dugouts by using solar powered pumps. “Normally we do about 3 to 5 of these projects a year," comments Goerzen, "and now we’ve done 42."

In addition to this, with the SRRCD’s impressive funding the province was able to secure a special device called LiDar (Light Detection And Ranging) which will help them analyze their rivers and design sustainable management projects in months; a process that would have formerly taken years.

Goerzen describes recent months as the most progress driven in SRRCD’s history and she expects this momentum to continue.

“When all of your funding partners look at the great work you are able to do, you can use that rapport to apply for more funding to apply for even bigger grants.”

Both Goerzen and Goertzen are highly optimistic about the future of their organization.

Read more: Conservation District Lands Unexpected Windfall