Keeping our water clean
For 20 years, grant program has helped farmers protect Waterloo Region’s valuable water sources
WATERLOO REGION — Over the years, dairy and cash crop farmer Darcy Weber has made a number of changes to his property with the aim of keeping the natural water sources in and around his operation clean.
“It’s to everybody’s benefit to keep the water clean,” said Weber, who owns Flora view Farms near Elmira.
He’s had a cement manure pit built and has added catch basins around his farm that use tiles to divert clean water away from the cattle operation and into the creek. He’s also planted trees to form windbreaks — protecting his soybean, corn and other crops from soil erosion and moisture loss.
To encourage farmers such as Weber to undertake such measures, the Region of Waterloo and the Grand River Conservation Authority have been providing grants for two decades to help them offset the cost of such projects. The financial assistance comes from the Rural Water Quality Program.
“The Region of Waterloo was instrumental in getting the program started back in 1998; they were the first one to commit to the program,” said Louise Heyming, supervisor of conservation outreach at the conservation authority.
“At the time it was novel in that the municipality was funding projects on private land, to protect water at the source, using the water user rates.”
In the 20 years the program has operated in the region it has assisted farmers financially with 1,700 projects. The region has provided more than $5 million in grants and the conservation authority, which administers the program, has leveraged another $1 million in funding from other sources.
“I think it’s also important to note that the landowners have contributed $12 million of their own cash and in-kind contributions to those 1,700 projects,” said Heyming.
The program remains popular and in 2017, grants were provided to 108 projects in the region at a cost of $360,000.
“It helps (landowners) go above and beyond and do some extra things that protect local water quality,” said Heyming.
“It might be fencing their livestock from a local watercourse, or planting trees to establish a buffer along a creek or it might be taking a hillside that was badly eroding and retiring that from agriculture production.”
Farmers have also had help decommissioning old wells and constructing manure pits, which prevent leakage into streams and allows farmers to spread the fertilizer across their crops when it’s best to do so.
Ken Hunsberger, a dairy and cash crop farmer who has been on the rural water quality program’s application review committee since it launched, said the program has had a positive impact.
“I’ve definitely noticed the difference in the stream banks where livestock used to be unrestricted for getting access to the stream for water,” he said.
“Vegetation is now growing on those banks, (it’s) completely changed.”
Heyming has also received feedback from farmers who have told her fish have returned to streams near their property.
“The project has been a tremendous success, it’s been welcomed by the farm community and it’s a model that’s been replicated elsewhere across the province,” she said.
Municipalities outside the region have also joined the program, providing funding to the conservation authority to implement the program. Some of the participating counties include Brant, Dufferin, Haldimand, Oxford and Wellington.
In total, the conservation authority has assisted with 6,000 projects across the watershed.