At its regular meeting March 29, Yorkton Council approved the appointment of the Director of Environmental Services or their designate as the City of Yorkton鈥檚 representative to the Yorkton Area Aquifers Committee for the Assiniboine Watershed Stewardship Association.
The AWSA is an independent, non-profit organization that is dedicated to protecting and enhancing source water within the Assiniboine River Watershed, explained Aron Hershmiller - Assistant Director of Environmental Services, with the City.
The vision of AWSA is citizens and communities of the Watershed working together to protect the source waters; its tributaries and aquifers within the watershed, he added.
The AWSA is one of eleven watershed stewardship groups (WSGs) established by the Water Security Agency (Government of Saskatchewan) after the drinking water tragedies of Walkerton, Ontario (2000) and North Battleford, SK (2001) to assist the Water Security Agency with the protection of Saskatchewan鈥檚 Source Waters. The AWSA has two Source Water Protection Plans 1; Assiniboine River Watershed and the Yorkton Area Aquifers, and it鈥檚 the only Watershed Group with two SWPPs, detailed the report to Council.
The AWSA was incorporated in January 2007 and has 37 rural and urban municipalities as members (all 24 RMs, both cities: Yorkton & Melville, all eight towns, & three villages), representing nearly 100 percent of the watershed鈥檚 population -- the most comprehensive of any Watershed Group in SK. AWSA is currently managed by Yorkton-raised, Jesse Nielsen.
The City of Yorkton has been an AWSA member since 2007, with an annual membership fee of $5,500.
A Yorkton representative has always held a seat on the AWSA 12-person board of directors.
The AWSA has completed hundreds of Source Water Protection Beneficial Management Projects since 2007 totaling over $15 million worth of projects, noted Hershmiller.
鈥淧rojects such as old abandoned water well decommissioning projects are great examples of projects that help protect the aquifers in which Yorkton draws their water from. The AWSA has worked with the four RM鈥檚 in the Yorkton Aquifer Area (Wallace, Orkney, Cana, and Saltcoats). Just in the last three years, the AWSA has worked on 210 beneficial management projects in these four RM鈥檚 of which 83 were water well decommissioning projects and 42 within the RM of Orkney alone,鈥� detailed his report.
Other projects that the City of Yorkton has worked with the AWSA on are as follows:
*City of Yorkton Stormwater Study
*Logan Green - stormwater pond, channel, fishpond, tree planting and signage
*Land and Infrastructure Resiliency Assessment (LIRA) 鈥� 2011
*Mapped out Yorkton Creek Watershed
*Assign economic values to what is mapped
* Model various flood model scenarios 1:10, 1:100, 1:200 and 1:500 year events.
* Suggest mitigation options.
Interestingly enough, the modelling that was completed in 2011 quite accurately matched up with the flooding that took place in 2016 (flooded highways and land).
* Working with the City of Yorkton and landowners regarding Grant-of-Access Easement documents for 22 monitoring wells (piezometers).
* AWSA manager is part of the board and executive with Assiniboine River Basin Initiative (ARBI) International Organization.
* Source Water and Urban Municipal Projects (SWAUMP) Fund:
* Assists AWSA鈥檚 urban member municipalities with various projects and initiatives that contribute to the protection, conservation, management, and stewardship of water resources. In 2020 and 2021 they provided two - three $5,000 grants to selected urban municipalities for their projects.
* City of Yorkton applied and submitted a project in 2020 but wasn鈥檛 selected.
* The City of Yorkton will be applying in 2021.
