The MJRWS implements many projects " on the ground" by working with land owners, rural and urban municipalities and providing youth education about the environment.
Below is a list of projects completed or ongoing for 2009-2010 year. 

Habitat Stewardship
Each year the MJRWS receives funding from Environment Canada to protect Species at Risk.  In the MJRWS, the Species of Risk includes Burrowing Owls, Loggerhead Shrikes, and Spragues Pipit.  This project allows the MJRWS to work with landowners to improve habitat for these Species at Risk.  This includes seeding native grass, fencing modifications/improvements, and improved remote watering systems.  The funding for these improvements is usually at a 50% cost share.   

If you know you have a Species at Risk on your land and want to make improvements to your lands please feel free to contact us.

Agriculture Water Quality Testing Study
The MJRWS wanted to study the impacts surface water has on the Moose Jaw RIver.   This project was funded by the Lorne Evelyn Foundation.  This will be a five year study.

Approximately 20,000 acres of surface water from cropland production drains into the Moose Jaw River via a man-made drainage ditch.  The ditch is grassed and in normal circumstances it only runs during spring runoff.  Our primary goal was to see how much nutrient loading was impacting the Moose Jaw River from cropland. 

We sampled three areas, at the ditch where the water directly discharges, in the Moose Jaw River upstream from the ditch, and downstream from the City of Moose Jaw.  We chose upstream from the ditch because we wanted to compare the analysis of the River prior to the ditch discharge.  The sample taken downstream from the City of Moose Jaw provided data of the impacts the City of Moose Jaw was having on the river in comparison to the ditch discharge and upstream from the ditch.

To see the results of this project for 2009 click here.

Avonlea Constructed Wetland Project
This project began approximately a year ago.  The project's funding partners include:  Saskatchewan Watershed Authority, Agri-Environmental Services Branch, Building Canada Fund and the Farm Credit Corporation. 

One of the key actions of the MJRWS Source Water Protection Plan was to minimize/elminate the release of effluent into the Moose Jaw RIver.  The Village of Avonlea has a one cell lagoon system that discharges continuously into a intermittent stream that connects to the Moose Jaw RIver.  The Village of Avonlea and the MJRWS partnered to implement the 1st Bio-engineered Constructed Wetland in the province to treat their effluent.   The contrutcted wetland uses natural vegetation such as cattails and bulrshes to treat the effluent prior to release.  In many cases the treated release is better quality than that in the river.  The constructed wetland is designed at different elevations so that the effluent gravity flows through the natural vegeation.  In spring 2010, the construction phase will begin.  To know more about treating effluent by using a constructed wetland click here.

Agriculture Plastics Recycling Pilot Project
The MJRWS and the Upper Qu'Appelle Watershed have partnered to hold a Agriculture Plastics Recylcing Day at the Town of Milestone on March 11-12, 2010.  They will be accepting grain bags and twine that will be shipped to Merlin Plastics at Bassano, Alberta.  This is the 1st Pilot Project held in Saskatchewan.  Our goal is to hold 2 more pilots within the next 12 month period.