n THE CARILLON STEINBACH, MAN. C4
n www.thecarillon.com THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2025 Agriculture Now
WES KEATING THE CARILLON
Project supervisor Chris Randall and Seine Rat Roseau Watershed District manager Joey Pankiw explain the use of a Geocel base to hold rocks in place on a low-level crossing.
Southeast projects highlight annual Watersheds tour
along with the trees planted in memory of Fred Kaita, have greatly enhanced that part of the museum grounds, giving visitors and school groups an opportunity to get a close look at the natural environment. The plants along the shoreline of the pond, provide an added bonus of discouraging geese from nesting in the area, Goertzen said. This probably comes from not knowing what pred- ators are lurking in the bulrushes and high grasses around the pond. In any event, tourists no longer have to worry about the geese when using the walking paths in the area. The geese still use the pond area as a feeding station and are expected to return to the muse- um in September, Goertzen added. After lunch at the museum, the MAW tour group travelled to the RM of Stuartburn area where the Seine Rat Roseau Watershed District and Maple Leaf Foods have created a large wa- ter retention project to temporarily store water and reduce overland flooding which occurs downstream on agriculture land and the mu- nicipal road. SRRWD project supervisor Chris Randall ex- plained the site doesn’t show how flat the land is. A three-foot slope using borrowed material for the berm has naturally grown back in and doesn’t need to be reseeded as it fills in with natural growth.
by WES KEATING T wo busloads of Manitoba Association of Watersheds employees, board members from across the province and project funding partners got a close-up look at a num- ber of projects in the Southeast as Seine Rat Roseau Watershed District hosted the annual Manitoba Watersheds Association tour in July. The two-day tour was kicked off at the Men- nonite Heritage Village Museum in Steinbach where the pond, part of the Manning Canal provincial waterway, has undergone extensive bank restoration . Tour participants were told that for years the banks of the pond were eroded during spring runoff to the creek, creating a steep drop off. Both the east and west banks of the pond were restored by placing coconut coir logs three to four feet from the banks to hold back the fill that was added behind them. Native grasses were planted in the fresh soil and covered with biodegradable erosion blan- kets . Addiitonal plants increase the diversity around the pond and act as a deterrent to the geese population. Mennonite Heritage Village Museum manag- er Robert Goertzen says that the pond project,
WES KEATING THE CARILLON Chris Randall tells the tour group that perhaps they had purchased a little too much rock when they built a spillway in the Stuartburn area a few years ago.
WES KEATING THE CARILLON Mennonite Heritage Village manager Robert Goertzen is up to his waist in bulrushes and high grasses growing along the banks of the pond on the museum grounds.
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