Recovering Santa Wayne S. was our Ring Master today, cracking the whip to get things moving. He welcomed in our New Year, which we hope will be a much improved Version 2.0. of 2020. He also reminded us that we could continue binging until January 19^th if we are or masquerade as a certain Heritage.

 

Our visitors today were our guest speakers from the South Saskatchewan River Watershed Stewards, Ben Buhler, Kerry Lowndes and Juliane Shultz, all of whom were more formally introduced later in the program.

 

After Paul G. teed up the Virtual Anthem, Steve W. delivered an inspiring blessing asking for the strength of our brave front line workers to speed the Covid vaccination efforts, and energy from all Rotarians to not slacken in our charitable works.    

 

 

HAPPY DOLLARS

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

TODAY'S PROGRAM - THE SOUTH SASKATCHEWAN WATERSHED STEWARDS (SSWS)

 

Wayne S. introduced his Brother –in-Law Ben Buhler who is the former Chair, an early creator and current board member of the SSWS. With a farming background from the Osler area, he has been actively involved with the SSWS for 15 years.

 

Also joining us today were SSWS Manager Kerry Lowndes, U of S, B.of Agriculture, and SSWS Technician Julie Schultz, originally from Germany, who holds a U of S Masters Degree with a focus on First Nations Watershed planning.

 

Largely Volunteer based the SSWS mandate is to protect the integrity, diversity and beautify of the South Saskatchewan River, our main source of drinking water.

 

The need for such oversight was brought into strong focus following the tragic deaths resulting from the historic Walkerton, Ont. water contamination catastrophe and the cryptosporidium outbreak in the Battlefords caused by poor planning whereby the fresh water intake was located downstream from the sewage outlet.

 

Authorities have now been set up for the North, South and Central parts of the Province and a large number of individual lakes also have representation. In addition training has been provided such that all urban communities now have water testers.

 

Funding is largely provided by various Government levels, but was recently cut from $94,000 annually to $74,000, so fund raising has become a high priority.

 

Training Conferences are rotated throughout the various Watershed districts to provide education and networking.

 

Tree ring studies have proved telling on the issue of climate change. Findings show that for every degree increase in temperature, 18% more moisture gets held in the environment, which one suspects could lead to higher flooding risk.

 

The South Saskatchewan River runs for  716 km and provides over 50% of the Province’s fresh water needs. Snow pack in the Mountains and Spring runoff are critical to its health.

 

The SSWS Core programs encompass:

Specific 2020 projects included Phosphorous increase testing to control algae blooms, Zebra mussel monitoring following a Winnipeg outbreak, “flowering rush” monitoring, an invasive species from Alberta and Ag partnerships for good farm stewardship including water friendly practices.

 

Ben pointed out that cleaning recreational boat hulls is critical to prevent the spread of Zebra Mussels, which once introduced, spread rapidly and critically clog water infrastructure systems and are almost impossible to irradiate. For example the City of Cincinnati City spent over $2 billion on muscle irradiation in there fresh water systems.

 

In Saskatoon micro plastics are being sampled in water systems as they become a bigger menace. As well floating wetland plant beds have been constructed to help absorb phosphorous from watercourses. In addition a “Bio bed” treatment site has been developed to safely rinse herbicide and pesticide containers from farms.

 

Micro plastics were found to be quite bad at the Clarkboro Crossing testing site, and are blamed on washing machine discharge of micro fibers, and also the breaking down of macro plastics like discarded plastic patio furniture and old tires. Planning is underway to test the fish population for micro plastic ingestion.

 

While our Saskatoon Landfill location is quite near the river, it is monitored carefully by the City as is the City water intake. We are blessed with a very good water treatment plant in Saskatoon that deploys a state of the art three stage program. But if the River did become contaminated in some fashion, alternate water sources have been mapped.

 

The SSWS website can be found at Southsaskriverstewards.ca and on Social Media.

 

Thank you Ben, Kerry and Juliane for a most enlightening presentation.

 

Wayne S. wrapped up thanking the meeting committee including Gary R., Paul G., Donna G., Wayne P., Steve W. and Graham P. Our thanks to Wayne S. as well of course as both a great Emcee and program introducer.

 

Editor

Graham Pearson PHF