Intermountain Conservation and Turtle River Watershed Districts are being forced to come together.
Intermountain currently covers seven municipalities, and the merger area will cover around 15.
Jeff Thiele, the manager of Intermountain, says both are set up differently, and this is a concern as they come together.
“We’re going to have to get together and figure out how they are going to run one district that have two different mandates sort of thing, and how they are going to do all that. Because Turtle River is still going to have infrastructure to deal with. So how are they going to deal with that?”
Turtle River deal is an infrastructure district that deals with things like culverts and ditches while Intermountain focuses mostly on conservation projects.
“It doesn’t look like Intermountain is going to have to deal with the infrastructure, our way. So that will remain the same. Is Turtle River going to be able to do some of the conservation programming that we currently do in Intermountain?”
The province is forcing a merger in 2020, and they want a draft plan by this upcoming March.
Right now the province is saying the districts won’t get any extra money and stay at the current budget they are at right now.
Thiele says he knows it’s going to be a big job while planning for the future while also keeping their current projects going. But he thinks it can be done. It’ll just require a lot of work and communication.
(source: Turtle River Watershed Conservation District Facebook)
