Saugeen Conservation released its third set of Watershed Report Cards this week, in time for Canada's Water Week.

The first set of Conservation Authority Watershed Report Cards was released in 2008.

"The grades in the Report Cards are based on data gathered over the past five years", stated Shaun Anthony, Water Quality Specialist with Saugeen Conservation. "Our data comes from water sampling in local rivers and groundwater wells, and from calculating the amount of forest and wetland cover in our jurisdiction." Collecting this data allows the SVCA analyze the overall health of the watershed and apply the appropriate grade, from A to F." he added.

"Overall, conditions in most of the 10 sub-watersheds, have improved slightly, although the lake-fringe tributaries, including the Pine and Penetangore Rivers, continue to show stressed environments." stated Anthony.

Since the last set of report cards, SVCA has planted thousands of trees, initiated programs to improve local waterways and established additional partnerships with major watershed players. Saying that, however, we continue to lose valuable wetlands and woodlands. Additional efforts need to be made to protect our water quality, such as the planting of buffers along local waterways. The new Watershed Report Card Summary is now available on-line at www.svca.on.ca. To get a better idea of the quality of our resources on a finer scale (Saugeen Conservation has one of the largest watershed jurisdictions of all 36 Conservation Authorities across Ontario), the watershed jurisdiction was broken down into 10 major sub-watersheds. Individual Report Cards will be completed for each one of these sub-watersheds over the next few months. Residents may find it interesting to check out the grades for their own local areas. 

To view the watershed summary report card: http://saugeenconservation.com/downloads/WatershedReportCard2018-SVCA.pdf

source: media release, Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority